A child’s curiosity and natural desire to learn are like a tiny flame, easily extinguished unless it’s protected and given fuel. This book will help you as a parent both protect that flame of curiosity and supply it with the fuel necessary to make it burn bright throughout your child’s life. Let’s ignite our children’s natural love of learning!
March 14th, 2007
Why I’m For Ron Paul and Against Mitt Romney
Hooray! Ron Paul has formally announced his candidacy for the top spot in the nation!
Mentioning she’s ready to start investigating the candidates, my mother asked me yesterday why I wouldn’t vote for Mitt Romney. My response to such a question (along with the response of why I plan to vote for Ron Paul) is as follows:
1. Romney is a political wolf in sheep’s clothing. Paul has a rock-solid conservative voting record.
As cited on my Masquerading Mitt post, we learn that Mitt is a politician in the very sense of the word (often antonymous with being a statesman):
Despite recent statements across the country by Governor Mitt Romney claiming he’s pro-life, pro-family and a committed conservative, a broad investigation of his actual statements, actions, and public positions over the years indicates that he has spent his entire career speaking and governing as a liberal — and that his new found conversion to conservatism very likely coincides with his candidacy for the presidency.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about politicians, is that they often say one thing and do another. In an attempt to win votes and appeal to a large voting bloc, they waver (or “flip flop”) on important issues as the social tide ebbs and flows back and forth. A strict value system is sacrificed in the name of political expediency.
Jesus said “by their fruits ye shall know them”, and that litmus test applies perfectly to our elected leaders. While Mitt truly may have changed, repented, and embraced new values, one cannot be certain and therefore should not trust the man based on what he says without being able to see evidence of those values.
Congressman Paul, on the other hand, has excellent “fruits” that consistently show he is a friend and defender of liberty. As cited on my Why Do Latter-day Saints Ignore Ron Paul? post, we learn:
Ron Paul has served as a conservative congressman from Texas for over 16 years. He currently has a 100% rating from The Conservative Index, which is probably the most relevant and accurate reflection of a congressman’s true conservative record out there.
…
In addition, Ron Paul has been the most outspoken defender of constitutional government in the entire congress-bar none. He has often stood virtually alone against federal abuse of power, corruption, and big government.
Rep. Paul’s voting record is squeaky clean, showing his uncompromising conservative values. He is often referred to as “Dr. No”, as this article explains:
Paul, 70, has earned the nickname Dr. No for his habit of voting against just about anything that he sees as government overreach or that interferes with the free market.
…
There have been periods in history when the maverick congressman was not such a rare breed, but this is not one of those periods. Democrats and Republicans have been quite disciplined in recent years — when party leaders say “jump,” the savvy congressman had better inquire how high.
Mitt Romney 0, Ron Paul 1.
2. Mitt Romney does not promote Constitutional values. Ron Paul does.
Searching on google for “Mitt Romney” and “Constitution” turns up several pages dealing mainly with two issues: same-sex marriage and religion. These issues have been in the limelight of Mitt’s political career, seeing as how he was the governor of a state that legalized same-sex marriage and that he’s Mormon. But after looking through pages and pages of results, I was unable to find any speech, statement, or soundbyte by Romney discussing Constitutional principles, articles, sections, or history. None. He hasn’t talked about it. He doesn’t understand it. If elected, he would no doubt become like many of our recent presidents (especially the current one) who are ignorant as to what the Constitution really says, and hence subvert and ignore it whenever politically convenient.
Anybody who has read a single article written by Rep. Paul knows that he understands, believes in, abides by, and promotes the Constitution. How refreshing are his speeches and articles that teach true principles and seek to implement the words of Thomas Jefferson when he said:
In questions of power then let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. (via Quoty)
Here are just a few of the many instances of Rep. Paul discussing the Constitution:
Activist federal judges not only craft laws, they also ignore the laws in place — particularly the enumerated powers listed in Article I of the Constitution and underscored by the 9th and 10th amendments. By ignoring the strict constitutional limits placed on the federal government and bulldozing states’ rights, federal judges opened the door to the growth of wildly extra-constitutional government in the 20th century. Activist courts enable activist government. (link)
Orwell certainly was right about the use of meaningless words in politics. If we hope to remain free, we must cut through the fog and attach concrete meanings to the words politicians use to deceive us. We must reassert that America is a republic, not a democracy, and remind ourselves that the Constitution places limits on government that no majority can overrule. We must resist any use of the word "freedom" to describe state action. We must reject the current meaningless designations of "liberals" and "conservatives," in favor of an accurate term for both: statists.
Every politician on earth claims to support freedom. The problem is so few of them understand the simple meaning of the word. (link)
It’s easy for elected officials in Washington to tell Americans that government will do whatever it takes to defeat terrorism, but it’s your freedom and your tax dollars at stake — not theirs. The history of the 20th century demonstrates that the Constitution is violated most egregiously during times of crisis. Many of our worst unconstitutional agencies and programs began during the two world wars and the Depression, when the public was anxious and willing to view government as a savior and protector. Ironically, the Constitution itself was conceived in a time of great crisis. The founders intended to place inviolable restrictions on what the federal government could do even in times of great distress. America must guard against current calls for government to violate the Constitution — meaning break the law — in the name of law enforcement. (link)
Do not these quotes resonate with you? Do they not convey a thorough understanding of and willingness to defend the divinely inspired Constitution?
The President of our nation takes an oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, and out of the two of these men only Ron Paul has shown that he knows what the document even says, much less how to properly act in its defense and support.
3. Romney might be able to put a fiscal band-aid on the government, but Paul (a doctor by trade) realizes that there are gangrenous limbs that need to be amputated.
How good does a little Neosporin do on a festering, gangrenous wound? Hint: none.
Mitt Romney is widely known as a savvy businessman who saved the day in the 2002 Olympics, using his managerial experience to solve an impending crisis. Many speculate that such experience would be a refreshing presence in our government, known far and wide as being fiscally irresponsible (if not conspiratorial).
But all he would know how to use is a band-aid.
Ron Paul has been actively speaking for thirty years on economical principles. He is opposed to the “Federal Reserve” and knows exactly how to fix our economy and cut government spending. He knows and often speaks about the true nature of inflation, reckless government programs such as social security and medicare, and how our dollar hegemony is destroying our currency and economy.
This speech eloquently expresses Paul’s understanding of true economical principles as set forth in our nation’s founding documents (this one comes in a close second). Can Romney claim a knowledge of how the Federal Reserve was formed, why it’s destroying our nation, how to fix inflation, the history of the dollar, foreign markets diversifying into other currencies, and exorbitant deficit spending? It is wishful thinking to assume that he must know. We need fruits. Ron Paul provides them.
John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, once said:
All the perplexities, confusion and distresses in America arise not from defects in the constitution or confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation. (via Quoty)
That ignorance is widespread in our nation, and Mitt Romney, from what we know, is in the same camp.
If you haven’t yet, be sure to watch the half-hour announcement on CSPAN. The bulk of the time is spent answering callers’ questions. One caller asks about the Federal Reserve and economy, and you’ll hear straight from Rep. Paul how he proposes to diagnose the gangreen festering in our economy and diluting our dollar.
4. Romney is getting plenty of media attention, while Paul is almost completely ignored.
I think we can all agree that the mainstream media is conspiratorial in nature, presenting whatever they deem important and ignoring important issues and events either by commission or omission. If you disagree, you need to do your homework. One need only look at the media’s silence of the Military Commission Act and the Security and Prosperity Partnership as evidence.
Throughout the past year of my political and historical studies I have come to a upsetting realization that truth can no longer be found through the mainstream media. Thomas Jefferson explains how even in his day the establishment media was thwarting truth:
The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. It is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. (via Quoty)
Our media outlets are controlled by very few men, men who (like anybody else) have a vested interest in seeing their political aspirations succeed. As Bill Moyers said in 2001:
The Founders didn’t count on the rise of the mega-media. They didn’t count on huge private corporations that would own not only the means of journalism but also vast swaths of the territory that journalism should be covering. (via Quoty)
Ron Paul is a threat to such an establishment, and so by omission he is largely left untouched, making it harder for him to get his message to the masses who are glued to the TV. Such media blackouts are not uncommon; in fact, one might more easily learn the truth by initially disbelieving what is being paraded on the media for widespread acceptance. As the interviewer points out in his CSPAN announcement video, the internet (our true free press) has been crucial in communicating Rep. Paul’s intention of running for office.
5. Mitt Romney wants to be President. Ron Paul doesn’t.
In his book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, author Joseph J. Ellis describes the presidential campaigns of our early leaders:
…the very notion that a candidate should openly solicit votes violated the principled presumption that such behavior itself represented a confession of unworthiness for national office. (via Quoty)
Mitt Romney, like all other politicians in our day, seeks office. He volunteers himself as the right man for the job, and goes around the country stating why you should vote for him.
If you watched the announcement video, you were witness to a great act of political humility, something not often seen in Washington these days. Ron Paul, a man running for the office of the President, stated that he was reluctant to do so. He has full confidence in his message (as do I), but wasn’t sure how much support there would be, and if he’s even the right man for the job. Ron Paul doesn’t want you to vote for him so he can have the office, he wants you to vote for him so that his message can be heard and implemented and our nation diverted from the slippery slope to tyranny we are currently on.
That act of humility alone (which he has expressed in others video clips I have seen of him) speaks volumes about the man’s character and motive.
A lost vote?
Upon expressing my intent of voting for Rep. Paul, some have expressed to me the notion that I would be “wasting my vote”. I would ask such persons, what is the purpose of voting? Is it not to support and sustain the person I think most qualified for the office? In defense of voting “third party” in order to support he whom I think most worthy of and eligible for office, I offer the following three quotes:
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. (John Quincy Adams, via Quoty)
We engage in the election the same as in any other principle: you are to vote for good men, and if you do not do this it is a sin: to vote for wicked men, it would be sin. Choose the good and refuse the evil. Men of false principles have preyed upon us like wolves upon helpless lambs. Damn the rod of tyranny; curse it. Let every man use his liberties according to the Constitution. Don’t fear man or devil; electioneer with all people, male and female, and exhort them to do the thing that is right. (Hyrum Smith, via Quoty)
…we shall have the satisfaction of knowing that we have acted conscientiously, and have used our best judgment. And if we have to throw away our votes, we had better do so upon a worthy rather than an unworthy individual who might make use of the weapon we put in his hand to destroy us. (Joseph Smith, via Quoty)
And that’s why I’m for Ron Paul instead of Mitt Romney.
282 Responses to “Why I’m For Ron Paul and Against Mitt Romney”
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March 20, 2007
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December 6, 2007
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January 1, 2008
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February 3, 2008
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You know (taking your paragraph on throwing your vote away as a tacit admission) that Ron Paul is as likely as I am to take the GOP nomination. You can vote on principle in the primaries, but to do so in the election is just stupid. (Remember the vote split caused by Ross Perot?) As each party gets closer to choosing their man (usually a done deal well before the conventions), I am sincerely curious about your practical, votable thoughts on the others in the arena.
If Ron Paul is all that you say he is, I have no doubt that he’d be a right fine president, but the two-party chokehold held from behind who knows what closed doors will see to it that he never makes it.
Looking toward the general election, who do you think will make it, and which way do you plan to vote?
I am sincerely curious about your practical, votable thoughts on the others in the arena.
You’re asking the wrong guy if you’re looking for what most call “practicality” in the voting arena.
Disgusted with my research on Bush and Kerry’s involvement in and staunch secrecy with regard to Skull and Bones, I decided that neither deserved the office of the President. I voted for Gordon B. Hinckley. 🙂
A vote is an action of support. I do not subscribe to the popular mentality that once the candidates are decided for us, we should hop on board and vote for one or the other. That is not the way elections work for me. My vote is sacred to me, and I intend to use it in favor of the man I think most worthy for office, regardless of what his peers and others think of him. I will then be able to stand with a clean conscience knowing that I did not vote to support a man who has abused his power and broken his oath of office.
Looking toward the general election, who do you think will make it, and which way do you plan to vote?
It’s far too early to speculate. If you want my honest opinion, I am betting there will be some sort of terrorist or war-related attack a few weeks/months before the 2008 election that will scare the sheeple into voting for whoever the media is touting as our best “protector”, much as happened with George Bush in 2004 with the release of the Osama Tape and the Republican cronies falling at George’s feet to worship him as “the only man who can protect our families”.
But that’s just my guess, take it for what you will. 🙂
Mitt Romney’s record speaks for itself…
You would do better to look at what he’s done from people closest to him. In this day and age any conservative trying to do what’s right is always going to have the truth about them twisted 100 different ways.
If Ron Paul was even a little bit of a threat to the Democrats or McCain you would see this happen. Ron Paul is a threat to no one and needs to get his name out there as much as he can and get out. Put his hat behind someone who can realistically win and give his support. Of the three, if he or you were honest it would be Romney.
Good choice.
“You’re asking the wrong guy if you’re looking for what most call “practicality” in the voting arena.”
Connor, your idealism is to be admired, but I have to ask you to take a hard look at whether it might be misguided in this context. Rather than make a vote for the man you find to be the lesser of two evils, would you abdicate your right to have a voice to those very sheeple?
There is no doubt that American politics is fundamentally broken in its contemporary execution, but sitting out, and saying “I don’t like the rules of the game so i won’t play,” and going home to leave your team one man short isn’t the answer. I can’t follow politics anymore, beyond blog entries of friends (like the ones you do); it shorted me out. My own idealism caused me to sit out for years, and I have to say that looking back on those years, it is not with a sense that I protected my sacred vote, but that I copped out.
It is a shame that the ideal and the reality are so far apart in this (and many other) cases, but you still have to deal with the real, Connor. This is not Zion; it is a fallen and a falling world, and yet we are here. We are here for all its fallen state, by His will.
I should clarify that, at a time like this, speak out for Ron Paul all you can. I am skeptical of the chances of a man who is openly opposed to the Fed, but if you can get him heard, then do so, but when he drops out; don’t write in President Hinckley again. It made for a cute stunt, but in the end, it’s no different than writing in Mickey Mouse.
Connor,
I applaud you in voting for who you think will best represent you. The problem with someone like Ron Paul, however, is that he is very much in the same vein as a Dennis Kucinich on the left, a maverick who is outside the mainstream parties. The problem with individuals like these is that they don’t have the political power to move their respective parties in the right direction.
John Adams felt very wrongly about political parties, and I symphatize with him. He said:
(pg. 422 of McCullogh’s biography)
This is something someone like Ron Paul will never have the political power to fix. This is a problem that started right from the beginning, and even one like Ron Paul who loves quoting the Founding Fathers should realize that even our Founding Fathers were quite complicit and guilty of partisan squabbles over principle. Heck, Thomas Jefferson’s relations with France were quite treasonous!
It is noble and nice to vote for this kind of person who stands for what he believes, but the power lies in the party, not in the individual. It always has and always will. Why? Because politics is about people. The more people you have in your respective party, the more power and influence you have.
What I would recommend someone like Ron Paul attempt is to create a third party (and there are a host of small third parties in American politics) that has traction. This build up will be slow and unsuccessful for a long time. Heck it might not even work, because of the stupid Electoral College (and yes people like Ron Paul decry those who want to eliminate the Electoral College, when really that’s what’s holding them back from creating a viable third party!).
So basically, vote for who you want, but it is my belief that a vote for Ron Paul will not be a wise vote, no matter how often you quote John Adams who said to vote for your conscience.
Conservative Gladiator,
I am honest, and I disagree completely. 🙂
Naiah,
I do understand your reasoning and once upon a time agreed with such a mentality. I agree that our modern political system is broken, but disagree that taking part in that system is the right method of swaying it one way or the other. In my mind, both parties no longer represent America and have gone astray. Why, then, should I support them in the slightest? This is the reason I joined the Constitution Party—I found a group of people who still are vying to support, promote, and defend the Constitution.
I do admit that a vote for Gordon B. Hinckley was tantamount to voting for Mickey Mouse. He wasn’t running, and he wasn’t involved in politics (other than encouraging us members so to be). However, the vote in his name was simply because of my political ignorance. One month before the 2004 election is when I began the process of opening my eyes and studying “things as they really are”. Regardless of what happens in the primaries, I will vote for Ron Paul, the man I feel confident would best lead our nation.
Dan,
It is noble and nice to vote for this kind of person who stands for what he believes, but the power lies in the party, not in the individual.
In a sense yes, in a sense no. The great thing about America is that the power lies in the individual, vested with liberty and the freedom to organize and rally others to his cause. That’s where the “party” comes in.
However, the dastardly thing about parties is that it leads the slothful citizens full of indifference to vote for parties instead of principles. This lets the party members say one thing and do another, leading aspiring politicians to formulate campaign slogans and soundbytes according to what their party members want to hear, when all they want is the power that comes with office. Therein lies the difference between partisan politicians and true statesmen, of which Ron Paul is one. As Linda Lingle once said:
As per abolishing the Electoral College, Paul shares his insights as to why the idea is a bad one. The bottom line: Abolishing it would further democracy, but our nation was not founded on a democracy; we have (or were given, rather) a republic.
Supporting the media bias I discuss in #4, Murray Sabrin writes:
Connor,
The only trouble is that you’re never going to get what you seek. As I stated, party troubles began right at the very beginning, so it is disingenuous of a Ron Paul to hearken back to the “good ol’ days” of principled men. Hah! Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were about as partisan as you are going to get!
You’ve already made up your mind however. There are no statesmen in American politics. There never were, except maybe John Adams and George Washington. The rest were partisan hacks through and through.
And I figured those would be Ron Paul’s views on the Electoral College. Too bad he’s fighting against the only thing that would ever reform our system to allow more parties and thusly better competition, and less corruption. The irony!
As for why Ron Paul is ignored, one just has to ask, what has Ron Paul done for the party that would be reciprocated in the form of media attention? There’s a reason why Ron Paul will never amount to much besides a Congressional seat in a highly conservative district. That is because he’s one man. What has he done for the party, so that the party will in turn do something for him?
I struggle with this all the time. Do I vote for who I believe is best? Or do I vote for the one who has the best chance of winning and overall will be the best chance of protecting my ideology . . . ? Those are often two different people. . . Still haven’t reconciled that one mentally and I usually vote for the latter as long as they pass my social litmus test (i.e. moral values issues . . . .)
So you’ve answered why you favor Ron Paul. But you have not adequately addressed the issue of why Mitt is so bad . . .
True, he may or may not be a viable candidate in the long run at this point. But at this stage, I do not believe that Ron Paul will engender enough political momentum to have a prayer of a chance. And I believe that his best role will be to influence someone who does . . . Does that group include Mitt? Not sure.
But it’s the crayon story — Janet Lee (Rex Lee’s widow) tells the story of her child being tested for kindergarten readiness. She refuses to write her name with the crayon. In the car home. her mom asks her, “Why didn’t you write your name? You know how.” Her daughter answers, “The teacher told me to pick my favorite crayon and there was no pink crayon in the box.”
We must select from the crayons in the box . . . . Ron Paul is a fabulous choice — but I don’t believe he is in the box of electable candidates . . . But you never know.
So back the question of Mitt . . .
What has he done for the party, so that the party will in turn do something for him?
What does party loyalty have to do with media attention? Shouldn’t it be what he’s done for America?! He’s done plenty to save our nation from rampant government imperialism and fiscal irresponsibility, but the media does not care about that, because they are often complicit and supportive of such actions.
If anyone is just considering a vote for Ron Paul, I would say to them that their effort is way too small – – and this is why: If we think we are doing our duty to just vote only, we err. We need to actively take a stand and study and talk among our friends, aquaintances and family to make our stand for moral representatives in government. We then need to see how we can influence our representative government for the good (fruits). After we have done some of these steps, we THEN can cast our small, puny vote for the person we feel will best represent.
If we do these additional duties first, then vote last, then we have accomplished real fruits – – and we can then feel good about casting our lone vote, whether one considers it to be “thrown away” or not.
Sure, Ron Paul doesn’t stand much of a chance to actually win, because he is fighting for what is right against the Gadianton power-brokers of the established mainstream media. But that doesn’t mean we can just ignore what is going on, and then the day before the election decide on which candidate is the “lesser of the two evils.” By the time we get to the election of the lesser of the two evils on election day, it is already too late. We need to start taking a stand for Constitutional principles right now, and we need to do it loudly – – just as Connor is doing with his post.
We do need to consider the fact that whoever wins the Presidency will be the pre-chosen person that the Shadow Government (Secret Combinations) are throwing their money behind. Right now, it seems that those Gadiantons are throwing money behind Obama. If you think that’s OK, then you need to just sit back and do nothing, and your vote on election day will truly be thrown away, regardless of who you vote for!
Mom,
So you’ve answered why you favor Ron Paul. But you have not adequately addressed the issue of why Mitt is so bad . . .
I’m not advocating a defeatist attitude as some on this thread seem to be fostering. Ron Paul is better suited for office than Mitt Romney, so I will be throwing in my weight behind him in support. If there comes a time prior to the election where he is no longer a candidate or stands absolutely no chance whatsoever of winning, then we can address that issue. But it’s very early in the electoral process, and anything can happen. As such, I am vehemently supporting Ron Paul in his campaign. You should, too. 🙂
Kelly,
Spot on, my friend! Far too many abdicate the responsibility to be involved and active in the process far in advance, when it is most influential and effective. Rather, they wait, deferring to others the duty of support and promotion. And then their vote is wasted, even if they vote for the winning candidate, for it shows nothing of their personal effort and activity.
It’s like sustaining the Prophet but not defending him against naysayers, obeying his counsel, and actively listening to and defending the doctrine we receive from him.
Ron Paul does stand a chance, despite what anybody may claim. But that chance will only survive and sprout if we the people take the issue into our own hands rather than conform to what we’re fed by the mainstream media.
Although an admitted long-shot Ron Paul can win the election. Unity is the key. We must not allow corporate and elite plants among us to derail this grassroots effort. A divided people will certainly ensure our continued course of rendering our Constitution as a worthless piece of paper. To be Americans we must act like Americans. We must put away our petty differences and look at the issues that effect each and every one of us as a whole. Ron Paul addresses the issues that are near and dear to us with sound principles steeped in Constitutional Law. He has taken a stance in Congress on more issues than probably all the other candidates combined. Endorsing and voting Ron Paul will most likely be the most important patriotic thing any one citizen can ever do for this country. Great presidents are far and few between and at age 46 I’d love to see one in my lifetime.
His biggest obstacle is that he is from Texas. No good politician ever came out of Texas. 😀
He said he is against the drug program. I wonder how he expects the elderly to exist paying $70.00 and more per prescription because of the greedy drug companies. If you cut Social security we will see more elderly either dying or in third world poverty.
Kelly,
What?!?!?!? Where the hell do you get that from?
Dan,
I said “seems.” That means it is my opinion. That’s because he seemingly came from nowhere, with little political background, and yet seems to command great presence with the media. This to me shows his money is coming from SOMEWHERE. And who and where is that money coming from?
Ron Paul is the ONLY choice! If Thomas Jefferson were here he’d be supporting Ron Paul and not any of these other phony conservative socialists. My money, my time, my energy, and my vote go to Ron Paul. No one else even comes close.
Kelly,
The same could be said of Romney. Politically he was not well known in the nation. You obviously know him because he’s Mormon. Before his run for president began, nobody knew him besides people in Massachusetts and Utah. So where did he suddenly get all HIS money from? Could he have gotten it from Secret Combinations?
As for Barack Obama’s meteoric rise, it is two-fold. One, he is a fresh political face, a fairly young African American who is very successful but not extreme, in the likeness of an Al Sharpton. He gave a most moving speech at the Democratic Convention of 2004 that assuredly touched most Democrats who listened, and as such, talk began early about him for 2008. He writes his own speeches and gives very hopeful and moving speeches wherever he goes. He does what few politicians can do, and that is reach to the voter personally. Secondly, the media obviously likes the story: the first African American president. Can it happen?
Your opinion that Obama’s money comes from secret combinations seems to imply that the mainstream media is a secret combination. That’s an awfully simplistic view of the media, and does you no good.
I guess I shouldn’t try to convince conservatives from supporting Ron Paul. After all, the more conservatives vote for Ron Paul, the more Barack Obama will win the 2008 election.
So please, have at it boys and girls. Vote for Ron Paul!
Dan, your comments are insightful, thanks. Personally, I have been voting third-party candidates exclusively during the past 2 election cycles, and will very likely do so again in ’08. And FYI, I do consider the mainstream media and Mitt part of “Secret Combinations.”
While Mitt truly may have changed, repented, and embraced new values, one cannot be certain and therefore should not trust the man based on what he says without being able to see evidence of those values.
Connor, what kind of evidence would you expect to see?
Connor, what kind of evidence would you expect to see?
The questioning of Mitt’s consistency is not a new one. Many will, of course, support a recently declared pro-life politician to one who has always been pro-“choice”, for example.
I’m not going to put a number on the amount of time it would take Romney to stick to a value system before it can be assumed it is his own rather than one crafted for him by a tightly knit group of politician advisers and poll analysts. I would say that several years of political involvement in various types of situations and legislation might show enough “fruits” for consideration.
As of right now, Mitt can hardly be considered a true conservative, as much as he’d like us all to think he is so that he can get our vote.
Jesus didn’t specify a length of time in the analytical process when he said “by your fruits ye shall know them”. To each his own, and if any of you readers fell that he has enough conservative fruit to munch on, then have at it. But with all I’ve studied and learned from politics, I strongly feel that all are to be stripped of trust and sincerity until ample time is given to see what they do with their power. In that arena Romney loses big time.
It is very difficult for me to read people who only vote in the idea of “winning” the whole nonsense of “lesser of two evils.” This is how the Gadianton Robbers in our day play on the stupid and the ignorant.
Bill Clinton had a mentor, Carrol Quigley, professor from Georgetown University who was given to write the true history of the establishment “shadow” government—the true lucifarian’s of our time—that book was the 1348 page “Tragedy and Hope.” Quigley’s great objection to these people was that they wanted to keep themselves hidden from public view, hence what he called the “tragedy.” Dr. W. Cleon Skousen’s Book “The Naked Capitalist” is a book review essentially of Quigley’s book. Quigley, in describing the propaganda and method to manipulate states:
“The National parties and their presidential candidates, with the Eastern Establishment assiduously fostering the process behind the scenes, moved closer together and nearly met in the center with almost identical candidates and platforms, although the process was concealed as much as possible, by the revival of obsolescent or meaningless war cries and slogans (often going back to the Civil War). … The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy. … Either party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigorless. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”
Fools get caught in the “vote for who will win” mentality, and in so doing, are dupes and always get stuck in the “lesser of two evils” idiocy, while in reality Skull and Bones Team A, or Skull and Bones Team B win either way, makes no difference, as Columnist Gary North pointed out in the last election where both major candidates were both from the secret society, “Skull and Bones.” That election was a sham, it made no difference who won, as both men were committed to the same essential policies, despite rhetoric. As we see, truth is stranger than fiction, and Republican’s expand government much faster than even Democrats. We are in trouble.
Ron Paul is the one the establishment can’t abide. They’ll probably attempt to arrest him at debates, as they did in 1996 with the Republican Debates where mysteriously Alan Keyes would be missing from the lineup, only to find out that when he arrived outside, the police arrested him, long enough so that he could not participate in the debate.
Joseph Smith spoke about voting for principle, rather than the scoundrel who “has a chance for winning,” clearly a wrong view of voting:
“…we shall have the satisfaction of knowing that we have acted conscientiously, and have used our best judgement. And if we have to throw away our votes, we had better do so upon a worthy rather than an unworthy individual who might make use of the weapon we put in his hand to destroy us.” (Times and Seasons, Nauvoo, IV, 441. Cited also in Roberts, Comprehensive History, II, 208-209.)
Hyrum Smith, Head Patriarch of the Church in 1844 stated:
We engage in the election the same as in any other principle: you are to vote for good men, and if you do not do this it is a sin: to vote for wicked men, it would be sin. Choose the good and refuse the evil. Men of false principles have preyed upon us like wolves upon helpless lambs. Damn the rod of tyranny; curse it. Let every man use his liberties according to the Constitution. Don’t fear man or devil; electioneer with all people, male and female, and exhort them to do the thing that is right. We want a President of the U. S., not a party President, but a President of the whole people; for a party President disfranchises the opposite party. Have a President who will maintain every man in his rights. (History of the Church, Vol.6, Ch.15, p.323)
Voting for Ron Paul should be where we through our support, not the ravening wolf Mitt Romney. There are many “ungodly and wicked” people today professing to belong to the true church of Christ, and this we have been warned about over and over again by the Prophets, yet too many will by default just “vote for the LDS wolf.” Too many too believe George W. Bush, a Skull and Bonesman, will fill the next vacancy in the quorum of the twelve.
Here is one writer who believes Ron Paul can win:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/sabrin5.html
Why shouldn’t I vote for Romney? (-Wrong Question-).
Why should I vote for Romney? (-Right Question-)
When I talk to my Stock-Mormon friends here at BYU, I get the clear impression that somehow the burden of proof lies in my hands – i.e. that Romney is the obvious choice (because he’s Mormon), and that it is up to me to prove that he is a bad candidate, when they have yet to offer me any compelling arguments (beyond his religious affiliation) that he is a good candidate. Every time I explain to them that he has been pro-abortion for the majority of his career, they either refuse to acknowledge it, or else say, “Well, he changed his mind – and I think we should trust him on this one.”
– Even when I show them quotes such as this: “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time that my mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a US Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years we should sustain and support it.” – They tell me I must be taking this out of context… I’ve even been accused of slander by some, because I assert that Romney is pro-choice, and it is evident to me (obvious to me) that he has “changed his mind” in order to get the presidential bid.
Oh, go ahead and whine, go ahead and cover your ears and deny it – go ahead and explain it away – go ahead and accuse me of maliciously misquoting Romney… I’m sorry if I can’t help that I see things as they really are.
Mitt Romney is also towing the same Iran garbage as the current administration. If he is elected, mark my words, Iran escalation will continue.
http://myclob.pbwiki.com/01-23-07
http://byufreedomsociety.blogspot.com/2007/02/mitt-romney-and-middle-eastern-wars.html
(second link has my take)
I’m assuming those of you who already worship Romney also worship Bush. You’r in luck, because former Bush campaign officials have recently joined the Romney campaign team. Jeb Bush is also showing support.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061023/COLUMNIST89/610230458
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17187253/
(or just google “mitt romney” “jeb bush”).
Anyway, for those of us who recognize the Bushes for who they really are, these developments do not reflect well on Romney.
For those of you who want to invade Iran and believe GW is a “good Christian” – sorry for offending you – you can go back to watching Fox News now, as the rest of this message won’t appeal to you very much.
To you who believe in voting for the “lesser of two evils” – remember you are in reality voting for evil, and just because you are voting for the lesser of the two, it doesn’t mean you are voting for good. Voting for an evil man does not meet the criteria that God has set for Latter-day Saints in choosing their government leaders (i.e. good, honest, and wise men). In reality, if you believe in the Doctrine and Covenants and still vote for the “lesser of two evils,” you need to repent. Go ahead and tell me that that’s too harsh a judgment to make – or that it’s not my role to judge that. Go ahead and try to make me out like the bad guy. You know my logic is sound – and you can’t debate it. If God tells you to do something, and you don’t, you need to repent – case closed. It’s not about being on the winning team or supporting the winning party/candidate – this isn’t a college football game. Those who consistently act according to true convictions are always the true winners. To expect that freedom can be maintained by any other type of people is to expect that which will never be.
The current two party system is nothing but two sides of the same coin – the policies, practices, plans, etc, that are most detrimental to our freedom continue to be advanced no matter which party is in power. Our greatest threat as Americans lies within, not without. We have in reality been taken over by a pack of spineless, bloodthirsty, greedy, … , traitors who don’t have you and me (let alone the Constitution) anywhere near their highest priorities. They are a pack of common criminals – a mob – and we all know what eventually happens when mobs rule.
I don’t believe that Romney is an evil guy (yet), as he hasn’t given me any reason to – I just believe his platform/views/etc aren’t anything special – just the same old junk they feed us every 4 years.
And for those of you who have been offended by this post – I’m sorry that your pride is getting in the way of your common sense.
“…we shall have the satisfaction of knowing that we have acted conscientiously, and have used our best judgement. And if we have to throw away our votes, we had better do so upon a worthy rather than an unworthy individual who might make use of the weapon we put in his hand to destroy us.” (Times and Seasons, Nauvoo, IV, 441. Cited also in Roberts, Comprehensive History, II, 208-209.)
So do you really think that Mitt is an “unworthy individual.” I know I might get criticized for saying this, but I will anyway… He seemed to be worthy enough to hold the keys to a stake presidency. Does this not give him adequate experience? Does this not merit any worthiness?
He seemed to be worthy enough to hold the keys to a stake presidency. Does this not give him adequate experience? Does this not merit any worthiness?
There have been men far higher in Church leadership who have inflicted great suffering upon the Saints either directly or indirectly. Being called and serving in Church leadership doesn’t necessarily reflect personal worthiness.
My 2¢.
okay i was thinking about this, if Ron Paul was so principled and wanting to reflect the original Founding Fathers, basically, then why is he a member of the Republican party? Does not his membership in this party undermine his very message? Why do you give him a free ride on this? If he really is that principled, then let us see him leave the Republican party once and for all.
if Ron Paul was so principled and wanting to reflect the original Founding Fathers, basically, then why is he a member of the Republican party?
Does membership in any party equate to capitulation and not being “principled”? Perhaps he’s simply working within the system to have a better shot at candidacy. Does being a Republican mean that one has to subscribe every single iota of the party platform? Can there not be reform from within the ranks? Could he not be just as principled if he decided to declare himself a Democrat? Who cares what party he’s in? Shouldn’t we base our judgments and votes on his actions instead of whatever party he does or does not belong to?
You short changed Romney in all regards. Imposing the personal beliefs upon your constituents against thier wishes is immoral. It is an abuse of power.
So, to attribute the liberal aspects of Mass. to Romney without taking into account his conservative successes in the most liberal state in the nation does not bode well for your fairness.
Also, your accusation that Romney, Governor of a sophistated state like Mass. and graduated Magna Cum Laude out of Harvard law, lacks understanding of the constitution makes me laugh. Perhaps you could teach him, since you have more google cites that match your name with ‘constitution’?
One more. The flip flop card is cliche and overused. It is obvious that Romney is consolidating votes for a realistic run by adapting his platform. Does that offend you that he is looking to grow the platform to the right rather than the center? Perhaps you’d rather he stay consistent, in spite of his personal beliefs, which have been held in reserve during his political life in Mass.?
Pragmatically speaking, you would elect a 70 year old man who (statistically speaking) will die of old age in office during a time of war simply because he is 100% conservative and therefore demonstrates 0% ability to work with 50% of the US constituency?
To Chris,
I’m ok with pro-choice. Am I evil? For the record, I think Romney personally is too.
But are you really going to center your vote on a media fed issue like abortion or immigration? These are small firecracker issues.
Fiscal issues like Social security, health care reform loom with much more foreboding.
As do issues in foreign policy…and Romney is not going to war in Iran unless Iran strikes first. I don’t think Romney is anything like Bush and I compliment him for it.
Imposing the personal beliefs upon your constituents against thier wishes is immoral.
Nobody here has activated the imposition of one’s personal beliefs. What some have discussed is supporting a leader who shares similar fundamental values. Surely such an action cannot be construed as “imposing beliefs” on anybody, as this is merely part of the political process. Gays support those who promise them more rights, seniors support those who promise to continue social security, and any other niche group in society will invariably look to support those who share similar beliefs.
So, to attribute the liberal aspects of Mass. to Romney without taking into account his conservative successes in the most liberal state in the nation does not bode well for your fairness.
To quote my mother as I was growing up: “Life isn’t fair”. I’m not trying to be fair, I’m trying to present truth. I’m not attributing the liberal aspects of Massachusetts to Romney, I’m attributing the liberal aspects of Romney to Romney! Personal accountability necessitates that Romney be held responsible for past votes and stances.
Also, your accusation that Romney, Governor of a sophistated state like Mass. and graduated Magna Cum Laude out of Harvard law, lacks understanding of the constitution makes me laugh.
It’s one thing to have read the Constitution, it’s another to abide by its tenets. I’m sure George Bush has also read it, but he has shown [2] that he doesn’t support it. Again, you are making assumptions for Romney, that since he is an intelligent person he must surely understand all the political ramifications and precepts of the Constitution. I don’t abide by such assumptions, and until I read a speech or anything written by the man wherein he discusses the document and his understand of what it means to him and to our country, the verdict is out on how much of it he understands.
Does that offend you that he is looking to grow the platform to the right rather than the center?
Again: “by your fruits ye shall know them”. I know he’s changing stances and policies based on political convenience, but he is most certainly not a man of principle if such changes are as frequent as they have been. Sure, I welcome him coming “to the right”, but I will not vote for him as President until he has been on the right consistently and proves his position despite the political consequences.
Pragmatically speaking, you would elect a 70 year old man who (statistically speaking) will die of old age in office during a time of war simply because he is 100% conservative and therefore demonstrates 0% ability to work with 50% of the US constituency?
First of all, you are making assumptions based on the unknown. I do not work from fear, I work from faith. Postulating that Paul might die while in office is a ludicrous reason not to support him.
Secondly, since when has the President worked with more than 50% of the constituency? Have you looked at Bush’s ratings recently, and how many want out of Iraq and out of war? Does he listen? No. Have past politicians ever listened to the voice of the majority after being elected? Hardly.
Dan,
I’m on Romney’s fundraising team here in Cali and i can tell you that most of the money comes from small and medium sized business owners and staunch republicans. You can read up on it b/c it is public information.
The man made a billion dollars learning how to finance venture capitalists…and you think he has to sell his soul to ‘secret combinations’ to get funding? Mitt knows how to finance…look at his ‘fruits’.
$2600 per person my friend, that’s all he can get, that and dinner plates at speeches. Secret Combinations…hmph.
Sam,
You’re naming the wrong person. I’m not the one who thinks Romney is getting money from ‘secret combinations.’ I was making that comment in response to Kelly Witherton who believed that Barack Obama was being funded by ‘secret combinations.’ I was making the comment to show how silly it is to say something like that.
I should clarify that, at a time like this, speak out for Ron Paul all you can. I am skeptical of the chances of a man who is openly opposed to the Fed, but if you can get him heard, then do so, but when he drops out; don’t write in President Hinckley again. It made for a cute stunt, but in the end, it’s no different than writing in Mickey Mouse.
While it may not make a difference in the turnout of the election it may make a difference for the individual voter.
For example, if Ron Paul is the only good, wise and honest canidate someone can find and if they vote for Ron Paul then they can stand before Christ with a clear conscience knowing they have been true and faithful. When a man stands for freedom and man stands for God and when a man fights for freedom he fights for God and even if he fights alone he fights on God’s side.
Simply because the secret combinations may have ‘sole management of the government’ we are not absolved of our opportunity to prove ourselves valiant in the fight for agency. Those who write in Mickey Mouse or vote for one of the wings on the same bad big bird will, like the one who votes for the single good, wise and honest man, answer before their maker for their vote. So, gratefully we have lesser kingdoms for lesser beings and higher kingdoms for higher beings.
First, are you stating that Mitt doesn’t share your fundamental values? I think he does if your fundamental values are LDS. Does Ron drink alcohol? Does Ronkeep the Sabbath day holy? as a libertarian would he look down upon the principle of tithing and the law of consecration? etc etc…(not that these are valid political positions)
Second, There really is no response to your ‘fruit’ argument since of course, all of Mitt’s changes have occurred only recently since he left his commitments as Governor of Mass. I wouldn’t ever advise anyone to ‘trust’ a politician, even one I trust…so your point stands. Personally, I feel comfortable with his changes.
Third, You’re diversion into what Bush has/hasn’t done is off point. I doubt if Bush has read the Constitution. Why is any comparison between Bush and Romney valid?
They both come from wealthy families.
They both served as governors. That’s it.
i see little other similarity. Romney was top of his class at Harvard Law/Business. Bush was a flunkie at Yale. Bush failed when given charge of an oil division, Romney became spectacularly successful at the most difficult of business enterprise. Romney saved the Olympics. Bush didn’t kill Texas while governor, Romney overcame a vehemently opposed legislature to balance a budget and work bi-partisanly to create the nation’s second successful system of universal healthcare (which is a minus in your conservative column) . Bush has two misbehaving daughters, Romney and spouse raised 7 kids, all of whom are doing great. Bush steamrolls political opposition, Romney finds workable compromise, Bush hides behind God when he lacks foundation, Romney presents facts and is never without foundation. And I find Romney’s penchant for compromise comforting in light of Bush’s brash resolution and its current consequences.
I still think that Romney run knows the constitution better than you’ll admit, and I think he has been forced to act in accordance with it when confronted with issues as Governor. You’d like something you can find on Google…that’s pathetic research. I’ll take Magna Cum Laude at Harvard Law any day…and I’m still laughing that you would deny him the presumption based upon google cites.
Fourth, if Romney stayed consistent with stances he found early on in his political career to be necessary, just to be consistent, and lost the election, would that satisfy you? what about if he is know aligning his stances closer to his personal beliefs and taking the hit for flip flopping? This is worse to you? You are comparing him to a noname Senator who comes from a conservative bastion who has never been challenged on his platform with any diversity. I’m not impressed with Paul’s untested fruits. In fact I find them sheepish.
“I do not work from fear, I work from faith”
This sounds familiar…oh yeah, Bush was working on faith as well, I hope yours is better founded than his.
“Postulating that Paul might die while in office is a ludicrous reason not to support him.” Is it? The man is 70. If you don’t think that matters, look at McCain’s numbers reflecting concern about his age. It matters to some people.
“since when has the President worked with more than 50% of the constituency? Have you looked at Bush’s ratings recently…”
Um, how about every time a president has worked with an opposition legislature he is working with that other 50% constituency.
Another off point reference to Bush, only less relevant b/c Bush spent 75% of his tenure with a Rep. legislature, isn’t going to help the weakness of your point.
“Have past politicians ever listened to the voice of the majority after being elected?”
Yet one wonders why president’s pay attention to polls? Hmmm even commissioning some themselves? It is a mystery, because clearly they don’t listen to the majority of Americans. Hardly.
I like your threads Connor. I really do. Obviously you think independently, but don’t box up Mitt in too tight of a box this early on.
Sorry Dan,
My bad. I didn’t read it closely enough. I take it back.
Also, your accusation that Romney, Governor of a sophistated state like Mass. and graduated Magna Cum Laude out of Harvard law, lacks understanding of the constitution makes me laugh.
Sam: Are you going to automatically put faith in Reverend John Doe, because he studied the Bible for x years in Harvard Divinity School (or other seminary)? As far as I’m concerned degrees (PhD, MD, JD, BS, BA) can only definitively demonstrate one thing – that you can think – but not necessarily think correctly.
I’m ok with pro-choice. Am I evil? For the record, I think Romney personally is too.
But are you really going to center your vote on a media fed issue like abortion or immigration? These are small firecracker issues.
Point taken. Abortion actually isn’t an important issue for me – as I realize that it is to the point that it would almost hurt either party to solve the problem – because then they have lost a means to divide us. The reason I bring up abortion with my buddies down here in Provo, is that they do care about abortion – it’s not really for me to debate abortion with them, but just to get them to realize that they have not honestly looked at Romney, and just taken the de facto Mormon support stance – without knowing anything about him. Furthermore, the fact that you only “think” Romney is pro-choice – shows me that he has been unclear… all of a sudden, he starts claiming that he believe life starts at conception… and there’s so much uncertainty about what he really stands for. On any given issue, I could probably tell you exactly where Ron Paul stands (on a for-or-against basis) – there’s no uncertainty with him – because he’s a principled politician.
Romney is not going to war in Iran unless Iran strikes first. I don’t think Romney is anything like Bush and I compliment him for it.
Did you read the speech excerpts I linked to? It is very clear that Romney will use his power as President to undermine Iran’s legitimacy as a government, and to turn other countries against them… so whether or not he is going to go to war in Iran is not the whole issue – it is whether he will continue current policies which only serve to heighten the tension in our relationship with Iran… Honestly – if we really want peace, we need to back off – and not keep pouring gas on the fire… Bush hasn’t gone to war with Iran yet – but he definitely wants to – isn’t it obvious?
My frustration in the whole scenario is not with Romney – it is with the people of America, especially the LDS that I’ve debated these issues with so far. If Romney is elected, I will support him (inasmuch as he upholds the Constitution) and will hope that he will make a positive impact. If he can help our country out with finances, and solve some of the problems with Social Security, then I will be happy that he was elected. I believe Ron Paul will do more in these areas (and other areas) if elected – as well as end some of the faulty policies that Romney will undoubtedly continue.
As far as I’m concerned degrees (PhD, MD, JD, BS, BA) can only definitively demonstrate one thing – that you can think – but not necessarily think correctly.
Chris,
Aren’t his achievements as Governor, businessman, father and politician evidence that he knows his stuff? His only weakness is inexperience in national security so he must talk tough. I accept that. I still don’t think Romney is Hawkish. He is firm. He has said nothing to the effect that he will act pre-emptively. With Iran we don’t need to, we have them surrounded with US army camps. It’s no secret why they are puffing thier chests. Any candidate is just going to wait it out. None of them are neocons.
But I think it is evident that Romney thinks through issues. I think the ‘state choice’ approach to homosexual rights is the most legitimate and constitutionally valid approach, don’t you agree? And that is his stance. Coincidentally it is also libertarian in its approach.
Ron Paul probably is principled in Texas. But could he ever get anything done as a Governor? probably. In Mass.? Probably not. The United States is not Texas, and the legislature is not Republican. Compromise and bipartisanship is sorely needed. Romney is proven in that area. He is the MOST proven in that area.
I care about foreign policy, my undergrad was in International political economy. But I’m more concerned with social security, health care reform and education. I trust Romney with these issues. Ron Paul may have solutions, he may even be as principled as you say, but I don’t believe he could ever be a successful president without compromise. You love him because he won’t. Democrats will chew him up for the same reason.
Compromise doesn’t mean one is loose on his principles, it means that one knows how to prioritize them and respect others.
Compromise and bipartisanship is sorely needed. Romney is proven in that area. He is the MOST proven in that area.
You said it correctly, my friend! Romney is very proven in the area of “compromising”.
What we disagree on, then, is the issue of compromise in politics. I personally believe that compromising one’s value system and set of ideals leads to capitulation on important issues that demand a strong hand and endurance through opposition. Shaun’s comment illustrates why such a compromise is detrimental to our Republic and only further pushes America towards a liberalized, tyrannical, bloated government.
But I’m more concerned with social security, health care reform and education. I trust Romney with these issues.
I trust him to be a socialist as he showed he is in Massachusetts. Socialism is not what this country needs. What we need is a restoration of personal accountability, fiscal transparency, and personal morality. Sadly, that’s something no politician can enforce.
WOW! This editorial is superb! Excellent piece, my friend. Keep writing. I’m gonna have to add this blog to my “favorites” so I can come back again and again. Great job!
What we disagree on, then, is the issue of compromise in politics. I personally believe that compromising one’s value system and set of ideals leads to capitulation on important issues that demand a strong hand and endurance through opposition.
You obtusively fail to distinguish between personal compromise and political compromise. That is naive and tyrannical. Bush is a paramount example of a non-compromising president. Will you herald his banner? Didn’t think so.
You are right, there are some issues that shouldn’t be compromised upon. But you are wrong; Romney hasn’t compromised his value system…he’s prioritized issues and made decisions. You wish he was personally corrupt so you could demonize him. typical.
I don’t need to demonize Ron Paul to make Romney look better. I’m sure he’s a stand up guy. Probably wouldn’t mess things up too badly if President. But if we are going for stand up libertarians who will never be president maybe I should vote for my dad?
Romney showed you that he is a socialist in Mass.? Again I am laughing. You can’t say that with a straight face. Liberals in that state hate him for his lean style. Romney shrunk the size of the Mass. government by cutting programs or downsizing them. He worked with the legislature to install universal health care because in States like Oregon and Mass. they have a wealthy enough middle class and few enough persons not covered with insurance that they could afford it. It is overwhelmingly approved of in that state. Your derision of it belies ignorance and blind religious devotion to libertarian ideals at the cost of the best solution. Do you really think that I want him to bring nationalized universal health care? Are you crazy? He’s said nothing of the sort. To the contrary. There is no one size fits all answer. I use the example to show that Romney can find the right solution to the right problem. Socialist…incredible.
He streamlined companies acquired by Bain Capital and resold them for profit, found good companies and made them more productive with less overhead and sold them for profit. he took the Olympics which were at a loss and made 130 million profit. He shrunk a liberal states government.
There is no area where libertarianist ideals are more violently challenged in the market then venture capitalism. Romney is an expert at what you value–market solutions. In fact, his knowledge of free market enterprise is forged in the fire of the market itself. If you cannot accept this as valid evidence, then you comment with a closed mind.
I’d comfortably posit that given his experience as both a champion and an administrator inside a free market system Romney knows much more about the market system, its strengths and weakness, than you can imagine.
This ‘socialist’ stuff is as banal as the ‘he doesn’t know his constitution’ crap. Magna Cum Laude means he aced constitutional law. That is not easy and you can’t fake it. Its graded on a true curve, which means he knew it better than 80 other very very smart people, probably the worst of whom knows the constitution better than either of us, so not only is he thinking, according to his con law professor, he’s doing it better than 95% of Harvard law students.
See his stance on Gay rights if you need a lesson on Federalism, 4th and 14th amendments and freedom of speech. Then look at how he stood up and opposed Gay marriage in Mass. in a losing cause and tell me that the man has no spine. Please…
Is Romney an unworthy individual is one query?
Yes, he absolutely is.
Here are some statements from LDS leadership warning of wolves like Romney, who will sell their soul for a Federal Mess of Pottage. Michael O. Leavitte did so, he turned over the private information of evey man, woman and child in the State of Utah to a Federal Database, with a grant from the Federal Executive Branch, and all in secret until the story broke after the damage was done. Then, what happened? He was rewarded with high political appointment into the Cabinet. Dirty traitor and sell out. We will yet see and be witness to the treachery of Mike Leavitte, as he is being groomed for some important work for the globalist traitors, as we saw numerous close up’s of his face in the last State of the Union speech, with his name put on screen. Getting that name and face recognition going is not an accident, as he’ll be the big cheese in the coming bird flu pandemic that will be released upon this nation.
Here goes some warnings about the wolves from within. First, way back in 1949, J. Reuben Clark standing in General Conference gave powerful information, which was quoted by Ezra Taft Benson 20 years later:
Yes, within the Church today there are tares among the wheat and wolves within the flock. As President Clark stated, ‘The ravening wolves are amongst us, from our own membership, and they, more than any others, are clothed with sheep’s clothing because they wear the habiliments of the priesthood…. We should be careful of them…’ (Era, May 1949, p. 268. See also Conference Report, April 1949, p. 163.) (Ezra Taft Benson, “To the Humble Followers of Christ” Improvement Era June 1969. p. 43.)
Then, after quoting this, Elder Benson then warned that these wolves are more numerous and devious today than when president Clark first made that statement.
The following year, Harold B. Lee warned:
We have some tight places to go before the Lord is through with this church and the world in this dispensation, which is the last dispensation, which shall usher in the coming of the Lord. The gospel was restored to prepare a people ready to receive him. The power of Satan will increase; we see it in evidence on every hand. There will be inroads within the Church…., We will see those who profess membership but secretly are plotting and trying to lead people not to follow the leadership that the Lord has set up to preside in this church. (Harold B. Lee, in Conference Report, Oct. 1970, p. 152.)
There are many more warnings along these lines, warning of treachery from within. Romney is a Constitution destroying basket case. Should the establishment annoint him and get him in office, it will be by the instigation of the evil one and his earthly emissaries—they will use him, then spit him out, disgrace him and have him as the key means to bring the “multitudes of the nations” against the “covenant people of the lamb” as foreseen by Nephi. Yes, if Romney is put in, it will be that he might be holding the bag when the Globalist Bankers ruin the dollar in totality, leaving Romney holding the bag, and leaving the media with the best scape goat they’ve ever had. Failed socialist states always need scape goats, and always produce them, blame them for the ills, then persecute and murder them. This, I believe is part of the Romney deal in the works if in fact he is the “Establishment’s Man” for 2008.
okay, let’s put to rest this silly notion that our two main political parties are indeed “secret combinations”, and that the media is a “secret combination.”
Many good latter day saints are deeply immersed in the media, in both political organizations, and well, in numerous other organizations, institutions, and corporations whose morals we may question. If these were indeed secret combinations, our prophets would warn us about them, and warn us to stay away from them. After all, if we participate in them, we would be aiding and abetting secret combinations, whose ultimate goal would be our own destruction.
So let’s just put aside the silly notions that the main political parties and the media are secret combinations.
Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t secret combinations WITHIN these organiaztions. It is my belief that the Council for National Policy is a secret combination. I would hope never to see a Mormon in that council or supporting that council, but unfortunately there probably are some. And I’m sure there are others as well.
Sam,
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe this to be the case. This is where his flip-flopping undermines this point. If he indeed thought through the issues, why have fundamental changes of heart from earlier positions? Does it mean that earlier he did not think through the issues and just spurted them out because it was politically expedient? Why did he fund a Democratic candidate in 1992, vote for Paul Tsongas, a Democrat in the 1992 Democratic primaries (note that he was a registered independent in 1992).
The one position he’s taken where I think he definitely did not think things through at all is torture. He backs Bush’s torture policies.
Shaun,
Huh, if they were warning members of one of their own being a wolf, and Romney was that wolf, why would church leadership meet with him on several occasions before he embarked on his race for president? Please stop the hyperbole, it undermines the debate.
Do you have a link to the entire talk? I’d like to read the context of his words.
As to the rest of your comments, dude…
Lohengrin:
Those who write in Mickey Mouse or vote for one of the wings on the same bad big bird will, like the one who votes for the single good, wise and honest man, answer before their maker for their vote. So, gratefully we have lesser kingdoms for lesser beings and higher kingdoms for higher beings.
Gee, if I vote for the wrong person I stand at losing my exaltation? Wow, I’m sure grateful for the Atonement! I wonder if the question of who you voted for will even come up at the judgement seat. Even IF it does, I find myself saying, “You know, I’ve always found politics frightfully boring and confusing. I did the best I could with the knowledge I had at the time. I’m sorry that I voted for …” Then I will have faith that the Savior will extend mercy.
Sam:
“Postulating that Paul might die while in office is a ludicrous reason not to support him.” Is it? The man is 70. If you don’t think that matters, look at McCain’s numbers reflecting concern about his age. It matters to some people.
I don’t think you can convince Connor here. He did vote for a 90+ year old man last election 😉
Shaun:
You’re a nut. Look, wolf! Got ya! hehe
Dan,
Yep, all is well in Zion.
Kelly,
Just where do you get that I think that all is well in Zion?
Dan,
I got that idea from your quote:
“So let’s just put aside the silly notions that the main political parties and the media are secret combinations.”
Boy do I think that the Cheney/Bush administration has taken our Constitution to the point where it is actually hanging by that thread. And I believe the media is much to blame.
I think this is just as Satan would want it. Not only would he want our Constitution and Media to fail, he would also want the normal person to be oblivious to it as it happens.
But America is not Zion, Kelly. The church is. We’ve got a long way to go before we make America Zion. That said, and while I totally agree with you that Bush/Cheney have perhaps irreparably harmed our Constitution, not every bad person in America belongs to a “secret combination.” To say they all are means you do not understand your enemies. There are bad people in the world that do not belong to secret combinations. Bush happens to have belonged (and probably still does) to Skull and Bones, most probably a secret combination. Same for Kerry.
But to make the bald assertion that both major political parties and the mainstream media are secret combinations is silly.
Dan, thanks for your clarification, I however differ in opinion on the point that the media and major political parties are NOT part of the secret combinations of the latter-days. I believe the media and politcal parties are INDEED the very embodyment of latter-day secret combinations.
Well it seems then this debate is done. There’s no point in continuing debating someone who sees the world in such stark contrasts. The problem with this kind of vision is that there is no room for compromise. Either you believe what Kelly believes, or you are part of the secret combinations. Such a shame that American political discourse has degraded so sharply.
Dan:
This kind of discourse is inevitable with religious believers. If you know what God believes, compromise is wrong. If your hypothesis can’t be disproven, so much the better.
Kelly:
You may be interested in my theory that Katrina was an inside job. The CIA controls the weather. I shouldn’t say too much because the NSA is monitoring our communications.
Dan,
I’ve read all of the posts on this page – and nowhere does anyone ever say, that the two major political parties or the media are secret combinations themselves – it is only insinuated that they are influenced by secret combinations.
A few questions:
Do secret combinations have any influence at all in these organizations? I think you would be unwise to insist that they don’t.
Do they control these organizations? It depends on what you mean by “control”… I think it is more a judgment call as to what level of influence they have. There is a point where influence becomes so great that it can be justly referred to as control.
One last question: If secret combinations were to gain some influence in the republican or democratic party (or media), would they settle for just a small level of influence? Would they ever settle for less than complete control? I don’t think they would.
If they did have complete control – how would you know? They’re secret.
Once again Connor has eloquently given his adherents more substantive content than can normally be consumed by a casual observation. His determined efforts to stay on topic are, likewise, profoundly evident.
After wading through the many comments offered up by the masses, I have serious doubts about my being able to offer much in the way of enlightenment not already considered.
I have often wondered what the scene looked like in the life before our second estate wherein we were all engaged, to some extent, in the debate over agency. I have pondered many times what my stance was. I like to think, like King Josiah, I “turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.” I also like to believe that I was a valiant, loyal follower of the plan which was offered by Jehovah right from the beginning, and was steadfast in my certainty that Lucifer was wrong. Alas, I am not certain if I flip-flopped, or may have even been, at least, occasionally considering the merits of the plan of coercion, and effortless salvation. I am certain that I shall, at some futuristic point, be given a clearer picture of that experience and many others as well.
As I have stated earlier on another topic, I am currently changing from being solidly in the camp of Mitt Romney to offering my support to Ron Paul. I suppose that is likely to be considered a case of flip-flopping to some, but I frankly do not care just how long it takes for me to get it right providing I do, in fact, get it right. I voted for President Bush both election cycles, and I have been bemoaning my so doing quite frequently these days. I know now that I simply voted for him because I find it nearly impossible to find any redeeming qualities within the current makeup of the Democratic party to even consider supporting. That being said, I also know now that I can no longer support anyone in either of the two so-called mainstream political parties unless it is someone who almost totally abandons the inherent philosophies of either party. Ron Paul has demonstrated to me that his principles are not only acceptable, but are as consistent today as they have always been during his career in politics. On the other hand, my friend Mitt Romney has given me apprehensions which I simply cannot, at this point, accept without fearing he may be just a little too globalist for my support. I will say, in his defense, that his understanding of economics, and persuasive nature are likely to keep me hoping he will come around to my way of thinking, but at this point, I am more concerned that I stand for anyone who stands for being solidly behind the Framer’s Constitution. Once again, Ron Paul has shown he has that quality solidly under control.
It have had the impression lately that the 2008 election will be the last time we will have an election for President of the same United States I remember so I am hoping we will choose the best man for sticking to our Constitutional foundational principles, and the only one on the scene at this point is Ron Paul. Granted, the scene may change dramatically before the election, but I sincerely hope my stand will still be for the same principles no matter what may happen next. I will say, just for the record, that I will still raise my hand to follow the Prophet no matter who the Lord has holding that office.
Mckee,
Bem Dito. I see the reason in your conversion to Ron Paul. But I don’t go that far. Your reservations about Romney, in my opinion, have merit.
I just can’t suppress the realist in me.
Presidents have always, always had to politically posture when engaging national audiences. Posturing requires some adaptation.
Dan and I diverge as to how to weight Mitt’s actions 15 years ago. What I recognize and understand as political concessions on two issues 14 years ago while running for a Senate in a heavily Democratic state, Dan sees them as lifetime commitments and unseperable from personal values.
I think the universe will roll on past Dan and my differences.
Shaun…dude, I don’t know quite how to respond without feeling like I’m talking back to the tv when X files is on.
Michael McKee,
What gives you this impression?
See, stark talk like this ends up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, because one side becomes so stiff and unmovable that they become an impediment in the political world, rather than part of a solution to the multitude of problems facing our nation.
I understand the need to be prepared for the last days, but my impression from what our prophets today (not fifty years ago) say is to just simply carry on. Do good, vote for who you feel best represents your values, and so on. I don’t get a sense of this impending doom from our prophets, especially not one less than five years away (because if you think 2008 is our last election, then all our problems will come in the next five years). This kind of talk is foolish.
Dan,
Maybe I can speak for Michael.
Have you ever heard of the North American Union? The NAFTA Superhighway (beginning with the Trans-Texas Corridor)? The SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America)? The Council on Foreign Relations and their recent report, “Building a North American Community”? PNAC (the Project for a New American Century)?
Do a little research on the above subjects – and then let me know if you still think it’s crazy to state that our country may drastically change in the next 5 years.
My impressions are neither unrealistic nor fatalistic. I did not intimate that the scenario was one of doom, but rather change which will be so profound as to defy current or past understanding.
The scriptures are replete with warnings applicable to our present political structure in the world, and they even tell us of the many who will be mesmerized by false attempts to lead us to the ‘New World.” As for our nation in particular, I do believe we will see events unfold over the next six months to a year which will indicate my impressions are founded upon preparation, and adherence to sound logic.
There is an event taking place in Washington, D.C. this Saturday, the 17th. of March which will, I believe, give us a clearer picture of just how divided we are in the United States. The so-called “peace” march to the pentagon will be met by a “Gathering of Eagles.” If nothing dramatic takes place between these two forces, I will soften my tone slightly, but I have been around since the last “peace” march so I am of the opinion that we will be experiencing much more as we progress toward 2008, and beyond.
I do insist that we follow the Prophet, but to discount Prophetic utterances from 50 years ago is, in my estimation, more akin to foolishness.
Dan,
We need to stop dealing with party’s—factions—as George Washington called them, warning against them in his farewell address. For you to act like Ron Paul being in the Republican Party is a great breach of his integrity is quite stupid and shallow, almost doesn’t deserve to be responded to, but for the sake of an opportunity to quote J. Reuben Clark, and being educational for yourself and any others, I will post this by Pres. Clark, that great educator and Constitutionalist, legal mind:
“Now, I am not caring today, for myself, anything at all about a political party tag. So far as I am concerned, I want to know what the man stands for…When I find out these things, then I know who it is who should receive my support, and I care not what his party tag is…Today, our duty transcends party allegiance; our duty today is allegiance to the Constitution as it was given to us by the Lord.” (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., CR 10/62:8)
Forget parties, too bad we have them at all, as people devote allegience to party, rather than to principle.
To hear the great Dr. W. Cleon Skousen speak of this, listen to this choice piece of audio:
http://www.awakeandarise.org/media/Dr.%20W.%20Cleon%20Skousen%20on%20Secret%20Combinations.mp3
Dan,
You want that talk by J. Reuben Clark speaking of the “wolves” within. I don’t have that 1949 talk, but it could be had at the BYU library in the “Improvement Era” bound by year in the periodical section.
I do have Ezra Taft Beson’s 1969 talk quoting President Clark in PDF form, a document created from the scanned images of the original Improvement Era that I could send in e-mail.
You can get many quotes, including that one at this URL as well, a most valuable little piece:
http://www.awakeandarise.org/article/TheNewWorldOrderAnAnalysisforLatter-daySaints.htm
Shaun, I don’t think anyone here would argue that there are “wolves in sheep’s clothing”, but I don’t know where you got the knack to point them all out so easily. How do we know you’re not a wolf?
Chris,
I’m a student of politics. I’m quite familiar with those programs. I don’t see them as anything more than benign. Furthermore, our prophets TODAY haven’t said a thing negative about them. And this is the key. There are members of the church who seem stuck on what our prophets said 50 years ago, in a completely different era, but yet don’t seem to talk about what our prophets are saying TODAY. What have our prophets said about politics today, everybody? Do I hear any doom and gloom coming out of their mouths about politics today? Do I hear them warning us about the impending doom supposedly coming in the next five years? No. Does this negate earlier prophets’ counsel? Of course not. But taking earlier prophets’ words out of context does not help you understand today’s problems.
Michael McKee,
I’m afraid you are going to have to be more specific. I don’t deal with such generalities.
Again, specifics. What are these warning signs you see? The only thing I see that will possibly profoundly impact America is Bush starting a war with Iran. Interestingly, though, that will come at the behest of pro-Israeli groups like AIPAC.
Shaun,
That’s too bad that you don’t have his full talk. I had hoped to read his full talk to get the context.
Also Dan,
You quote:
Heaven help us! Prophets have warned, and the Book of Mormon cries out warning, yet few read and comprehend it, but rather “treat it lightly” and hence the condemnation, the scourge and judgement that rests upon the church today.
In 1987, President Ezra Taft Benson likened 3 Nephi to our day, paralleling it to our very time. Those listening were stunned by such an application, for note what it is he stated about secret combinations:
“Secret combinations flourished because, as Helaman tells us, the Gadianton robbers ‘had seduced the more part of the righteous until they had come down to believe in their works and partake of their spoils’ (Helaman 6:38)…even at today.” (Conference Report, April 1987, Ensign, May 1987, p. 4.)
It matters not where LDS people are in media and politics, as the “more part” of them have been “seduced” to upholding and believing in the abominations of the Gadianton Robbers. The prophets have been mentally stoned and rebuffed on this issue, and it is most unfortunate.
In 1959, David O. McKay stood at the pulpit in general conference and waved in his hand the book “The Naked Communist” by Dr. W. Cleon Skousen. He asked the church to read it. Some obeyed certainly but in the whole, the counsel coming from President McKay went unheeded. By 1965, Ezra Taft Benson warned the Gathered Preisthood on their failure to obey, to read, heed, and listen to the living prophet who had instructed them to become informed. Here is his prophetic warning that should chill us:
“Brethren, if we had done our homework and were faithful, we could step forward at this time and help save this country. The fact that most of us are unprepared to do it is an indictment we will have to bear. The longer we wait, the heavier the chains, the deeper the blood, the more the persecution, and the less we can carry out our God-given mandate and world-wide mission. The war in heaven is raging on earth today. Are you being neutralized in the battle?” (Conference Report, April 1965, Era, p. 539; as quoted in An Enemy Hath Done This, pp. 278-279.)
Until this day, most have been neutralized in that battle. Then, nearing and just a few years before he was “taken out of our midst” and his voice stilled in testimony against us, Ezra Taft Benson, then President of the Church spoke to what is ahead of us:
“To all who have discerning eyes, it is apparent that the republican form of government established by our noble forefathers cannot long endure once fundamental principles are abandoned. Momentum is gathering for another conflict—a repetition of the crisis of two hundred years ago. This collision of ideas is worldwide. The issue is the same that precipitated the great pre mortal conflict—will men be free to determine their own course of action or must they be coerced?” (The Constitution: A Heavenly Banner, p. 27; as quoted in The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 623.)
Shaun,
You’re still stuck on prophets from before 1990. Please quote me a prophet since the fall of the Soviet Union on politics. Show me what they say. They certainly don’t have any qualms about warning us about dangers, wherever they may be. Show me what today’s prophets have said about politics today.
Perhaps the words of prophets in the 80s don’t matter anymore?
Indulge me please. Show me what prophets since 1990 have said about politics.
The Church’s official position is that it is ALWAYS completely neutral on political views, except in issues of morality. The Church however encourages us to study the issues for ourselves. My personal study seems to tell me that our current situation with US politics goes against what I feel should be happening. I feel the Constitution is under grave danger, and if Bush had his way, he’d just scrap that “g*d* piece of paper”. The lies, cover-ups and ethics lapses coming from government are way beyond what a prophet who declares political neutrality needs to be warning me about – – I can logic this one out between me and the Spirit all by myself.
Thank you Kelly.
Has any prophet or Apostle since 1990 spoken out as strongly as Benson et al? If not, would not their silence imply complicity?
Dan,
As your quest for seeking recent prophetic political stances is somewhat of a threadjack, I will write up a post next week offering my thoughts on this matter (as it is something I’ve pondered quite a bit) so we can continue the conversation there.
Dan,
Not complicity, but simply the “time of warning” is past in many cases.
President Hinckley in 1997 stated:
“Our critics at home and abroad are watching us. In an effort to find fault, they listen to every word we say, hoping to entrap us. ” ((Gordon B. Hinckley, “Our Testimony to the World,” Ensign, May 1997, 83)
The wolves are so strong now, and are ready to spring their traps upon the church and it’s leadership.
Connor, Dan,
I’m excited to see another continuation of Dan’s comments. It has been an item of extreme curiosity to me since my time of awakening concerning political things. We seem to have seen a definite flavor change in political utterances from the pulpit. This is perhaps safe and good, being a “world” church and all. I suppose that Saints in Germany, Venezuela, and Russia would all erupt in chaos if we were suddenly told from the pulpit that we could not give our allegiance to the laws of our respected countries anymore. If my ponderings here are true, it puts an additional responsibility for individuals to act, rather than for prophets to tell us how to act when we come to world affairs of “rumors of war.”
Dan writes:
I hope you begin to read a little more clearly and carefully what is being stated by prophets, and what the spirit it teaching those who do not reject the Book of Mormon.
Neil A. Maxwell stated that one of the great burdens for disciples of Christ in these last days is that they “will not be able to share even a hudredth part of that which they know and feel.”
There are things that should not be posted to such a forum where the wolves (who admittedly now wiretap us) can access such things.
Dan, you are blind as to what is being given.
The Book of Mormon is a pattern for us to follow in preparing for the second coming, according to Ezra Taft Benson. As we look at the pattern, notice that Nephi, the prophet who led the church
Here is an excerpt from an e-mail blasting those who rail against dead prophets, which of course the living prophet is the real key:
I personally hold stalk in Gordon B. Hinckley’s warning in the 2005 general Priesthood meeting speaking of clothing “to keep us warm.” This of course was in the same discourse where was quoted 3 Nephi 8 to such an extent as no other Church President has ever quoted of which I’m aware. That chapter of scripture graphically describes the seemingly “whirlwind” speed with which the inhabitants of ancient America were taken off gaurd with destructions as had never before been known in all the land. Entire cities buried by the earth, burned, some sunk into the depths of the sea, earthquakes, whirlwinds, horrific was the storm. And in the Nephite record we understand the reality that the Prophet of God, Nephi, who did in fact lead the church with “power and authority” did not the day before the storm, nor the week before the storm, nor the year before the storm come out and predict it and declare it to be imminent. How many would then decry him as being a false prophet? Was he a poor, or uninspired prophet? No! He was a great prophet. This was a prophet who had angels “ministering to him daily” and who “raised his brother from the dead” who had been murdered by the wicked. Surely only a fool would seek to impugn such a prophet and condemn him for being uninspired. So why if Nephi was so great did he not warn the people? Surely he did warn them as our prophet today warns us. However, we learn great lessons in this account, which was “written for our day” and particularly, 3 Nephi, as Ezra Taft Benson emphasized is a pattern for our preparation for the second coming of Christ. After all these destructions, could the people decry the prophets for being uninspired, having not “known of” or “warned of” such calamity and destruction? Of course not. What did the God of Heaven, and the God of the Land of America, the Savior declare in the record? He said this:
And now, whoso readeth, let him understand; he that hath the scriptures, let him search them, and see and behold if all these deaths and destructions by fire, and by smoke, and by tempests, and by whirlwinds, and by the opening of the earth to receive them, and all these things are not unto the fulfilling of the prophecies of many of the holy prophets. (3 Ne. 10:14.)
Indeed, the destructions had been given years, and years ahead of time, and the current and living prophet did not recite such prophecies, that we know of, the day before the great calamity came upon the people. They should have known the scriptures and been prepared. What fools today we meet who when giving a word of warning reply: “President Hinckley’s not talking about that.” Fools! He has too warned, such persons prove deaf, dumb, and ready for a slaughter which they might have averted had they any sense and a “listening ear.”
For President Hinckley to quote so heavily from 3 Nephi 8 proved sobering.
Boyd K. Packer stated in Conference way back in 1991:
“No one of us can survive in the world of today, much less in what it soon will become, without personal inspiration.”
The Book of Mormon prophesies of an “entire separation” of the righteous from the wicked that will take place at some point in the future. Bruce R. McConkie warned:
“We do not know when the calamities and troubles of the last days will fall upon any of us as individuals or upon bodies of the Saints. The Lord deliberately withholds from us the day and hour of his coming and of the tribulations which shall precede it—all as part of the testing and probationary experiences of mortality. He simply tells us to watch and be ready.” (Bruce R. McConkie, “Stand Independent above All Other Creatures,” Ensign, May 1979, 92)
Elder McConkie also stunned all listening when he gave another talk the following year. Both talks and both years also had Ezra Taft Benson speaking exceptionally powerful, great and prophetic warnings, perhaps nearly like a Samuel the Lamanite might make, and much of what they warned about will yet transpire. So in 1980, Elder McConkie refers to the “wicked and ungodly” being swept from the LDS Church:
“Is it any wonder that we both rejoice and tremble at what lies ahead?
“Truly the world is and will be in commotion, but the Zion of God will be unmoved. The wicked and ungodly shall be swept from the Church, and the little stone will continue to grow until it fills the whole earth.” (Bruce R. McConkie, “The Coming Tests and Trials and Glory,” Ensign, May 1980, 71.)
There is a “cleansing coming.” Ezra Taft Benson speaking of that cleansing in a 1969 in General Conference:
“But there is a cleansing coming. The Lord says that his vengeance shall be poured out ‘upon the inhabitants of the earth. . . . And upon my house shall it begin, and from my house shall it go forth, saith the Lord; First among those among you who have professed to know my name and have not known me. . . . ’ (D&C) 112:24-26.) I look forward to that cleansing; it’s need within the Church is becoming increasingly apparent.” (Ezra Taft Benson, “To The Humble Followers of Christ,” Improvement Era, June 1969 p. 42.)
God will perform a cleansing, and may we make all preparations within our power so as to withstand the days ahead. Notice Gordon B. Hinckley cited the afore mentioned D&C 112, just after September 11th. He warned:
“Occasions of this kind pull us up sharply to a realization that life is fragile, peace is fragile, civilization itself is fragile. The economy is particularly vulnerable. We have been counseled again and again concerning self-reliance, concerning debt, concerning thrift. So many of our people are heavily in debt for things that are not entirely necessary. When I was a young man, my father counseled me to build a modest home, sufficient for the needs of my family, and make it beautiful and attractive and pleasant and secure. He counseled me to pay off the mortgage as quickly as I could so that, come what may, there would be a roof over the heads of my wife and children. I was reared on that kind of doctrine. I urge you as members of this Church to get free of debt where possible and to have a little laid aside against a rainy day.
“We cannot provide against every contingency. But we can provide against many contingencies. Let the present situation remind us that this we should do.
“As we have been continuously counseled for more than 60 years, let us have some food set aside that would sustain us for a time in case of need.
“The Constitution under which we live, and which has not only blessed us but has become a model for other constitutions, is our God-inspired national safeguard ensuring freedom and liberty, justice and equality before the law.
“I do not know what the future holds. I do not wish to sound negative, but I wish to remind you of the warnings of scripture and the teachings of the prophets which we have had constantly before us.
“I cannot forget the great lesson of Pharaoh’s dream of the fat and lean kine and of the full and withered stalks of corn.
“I cannot dismiss from my mind the grim warnings of the Lord as set forth in the 24th chapter of Matthew.
“I am familiar, as are you, with the declarations of modern revelation that the time will come when the earth will be cleansed and there will be indescribable distress, with weeping and mourning and lamentation (see D&C 112:24).” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Times in Which We Live,” Ensign, Nov. 2001, 72)
Few are listening to the Living Prophet, nor are they treasuring up the scriptures and taking the “holy spirit for their guide” and hence avoiding deception, as the “more part of the righteous” do, being “seduced” to believe in the works of and to partake of the spoils of the Gadianton Robbers, thus enabling secret combinations to flourish.
I hope all are reading daily their Scriptures, and praying, feasting upon the words of the dead prophets, with the final, and most critical key, watching, heeding, pondering and meditating upon the words of the living oracles.
As we look at the Book of Mormon, we see that they did “search the prophets diligently.”
Dan, the Living Prophet is where it is at, but most are not hearing him, and nor are they obeying him. Most do not listen to the spirit and get direction and insight into what he’s stating as well.
Connor,
This debate we’re now having lies at the heart of choosing someone like Ron Paul who has no chance of the nomination versus a more mainstream candidate. And as such it is relevant for the topic. The reason so many of your readers are backing Ron Paul (even though he is not a member of the church and as such is not privy to these warnings) and not Mitt Romney is precisely because of these quotes from Benson et al from before the end of the Cold War. It isn’t a thread jack. I do try to avoid those. I believe getting all this out is instructive on how many Mormons view politics these days.
Dan,
Gadianton Robbers are watching, waiting and listening. Therefore, it is much easier to quote dead prophets, who cannot therefore be murdered. Plenty could be and should be shared with you, but I think spelling some of it out defeats the purpose of why Christ taught in parables. Joseph Smith taught:
“Our lives have already become jeopardized by revealing the wicked and bloodthirsty purposes of our enemies; and for the future we must cease to do so. All we have said about them is truth, but it is not always wise to relate all the truth. Even Jesus, the Son of God, had to refrain from doing so, and had to restrain His feelings many times for the safety of Himself and His followers, and
had to conceal the righteous purposes of His heart in relation to many things pertaining to His Father’s kingdom. When still a boy He had all the intelligence necessary to enable Him to rule and govern the
kingdom of the Jews, and could reason with the wisest and most profound doctors of law and divinity, and make their theories and practice to appear like folly compared with the wisdom He possessed;
but He was a boy only, and lacked physical strength even to defend His own person; and was subject to cold, to hunger and to death. So it is with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; we have the
revelation of Jesus, and the knowledge within us is sufficient to organize a righteous government upon the earth, and to give universal peace to all mankind, if they would receive it, but we lack the physical strength, as did our Savior when a child, to defend our principles, and we have a necessity to be afflicted, persecuted and smitten, and to bear if patiently until Jacob is of age, then he will take care of himself.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Section Six 1843-44 pp 392).
We refuse to wake up and thus be willing and able to “take care” our ourselves, and thereby we limit the prophet. But the D&C warns that the righteous shall avoid deception by “taking the holy spirit for their guide” and thus will not be seduced to uphold and support secret combinations and wolves in sheep’s clothing who would deceive the very elect.
Too much to say, but can’t do so here. My pleading for you Dan, is to begin to listen more carefully and prayerfully to the Living Prophets, and if you have laid a great foundation upon the dead prophets of 50 years ago, the spirit will bring to your mind great insights as to the reality of what is going on right now. Remember, Nephi of 3 Nephi was a great prophet, and the day before the most devestating destruction, even the year before, he did not spell it out in warning the people specifically, but it was a prophet of nearly 40 years before that who spelled out the destructions, Samueal, the Lamanite. Ponder and figure that out. When we have great calamities, don’t be one of the many who will cry out accusation against the prophets for having “not warned” of these things. Such will be marked as fools, and the Lord’s answer to them will ultimately be what it was to the remnants of Nephites who were spared:
And now, whoso readeth, let him understand; he that hath the scriptures, let him search them, and see and behold if all these deaths and destructions by fire, and by smoke, and by tempests, and by whirlwinds, and by the opening of the earth to receive them, and all these things are not unto the fulfilling of the prophecies of many of the holy prophets. (3 Ne. 10:14.)
What do you know Dan of the prophets of the past 30 years? Their prophecies will be fulfilled, for “whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.” The LDS people had better wake up and pay attention, but most are asleep crying “all is well in zion.”
Dan writes:
You should get the talk and read it in full context. Are you close to BYU? Do you have the infobases archive?
Dan asks:
Not on-line. It’s all there for your study, as you can access what they’ve said, but to bring some of it to light—things the spirit reveals is not to be undertaken here. Remember, wolves prowl, and we are living in this situation as indicated by Pres. Faust:
“A spirit of darkness prevails in our day as it did many centuries ago when Jesus Christ was about to be crucified.” (James E. Faust, “The Shield of Faith,” Ensign, May 2000, 17)
I’m not trying to sound “elitist” or that I have “secret mysteries” but the fact is there is much that could be shared with you, but this is not the forum to do so, precicely because of the many afore mentioned reasons, dealing with parables, and their intended purpose to shield truth from the wicked, who now “listen” to every word the Apostles say, “hoping to entrap” them.
Shaun,
Why? Why has the time of warning past?
Why not? Why do you fear them? I certainly don’t. I say bring them on! Com’on out of your shadows you cowards!
Who’s email is this? Who is the author?
You’re quoting President Hinckley about his warnings to us, but just what has he been warning us about? What evils lie in shadows to take us down? I don’t get anything political out of his comments. In fact, he’s been quote politics-free (with the two exceptions of the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq war). President Hinckley’s warnings have been in relation to Satan’s traps around us, such as pornography that are meant to destroy us, and bring us down in bondage. You are trying to use his warnings against such evils as evidence that he continues to warn us about the things we were warned about regarding politics during the Cold War. I’m sorry, but that’s a stretch I cannot accept. I understand our prophets speaking out quite strongly against communism during the Cold War. I also understand Bruce R. McConkie’s talk about the cleansing. His talk is related to President Lee’s talk about liberalism within Mormonism during the late 60s and early 70s (a very different subject than political liberalism—though many rather ignorant Mormons have attempted to tie their denunciation of liberal Mormonism to political liberalism—in this they have erred).
To this point, you have not offered up any convincing, credible evidence of problems arising within the next six months, the next year, or the next five years, politically. All your comments are at this point vague warnings with quotes taken out of context.
I understand this particular movement within Mormonism has durability and support, and as such, sadly, I’m going to have to continue dealing with this, responding to more and more such comments.
At this point, our current prophet and Apostles have maintained that we are to choose for ourselves the best candidates (and the noticeable thing missing is not to judge candidates from an eternal perspective—i.e. the eternal fight between good and evil), whether Democrat, Republican or independent. I note also Elder Dallin H. Oaks who said, in 1987 the following:
I think it is high time to stop religifying politics.
Shaun,
What? Huh? Dude! What ever happened to “truth shall make you free?” What ever happened to in the last days, shall all things be made known? Dude, bring it out. Spell it out. By the very fact that you don’t want to share them, you are aiding these secret combinations, because you continue to allow them to remain secret.
Only those with secrets are afraid of the truth. Are you afraid of the truth, Shaun?
“I don’t get anything political out of his comments. In fact, he’s been quote politics-free (with the two exceptions of the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq war).” From Dan
‘Only those with secrets are afraid of the truth.’ Have you read Alma 12:9?
Well, perhaps Dan you do not hear. Perhaps these quotes may help.
“It is the terrorist organizations that must be ferreted out and brought down. We of this Church know something of such groups. The Book of Mormon speaks of the Gadianton robbers, a vicious, oath-bound, and secret organization bent on evil and destruction. In their day they did all in their power, by whatever means available, to bring down the Church, to woo the people with sophistry, and to take control of the society. We see the same thing in the present situation.” Pres. Hinckley, The Times in Which We Live, Oct. 2001 General Conference
So, we ask the question, ‘What terrorist organization carried out the 9/11 attacks Pres. Hinckley refers to?’ Pres. Hinckley states the rule: We see the same thing in the present situation. Then we must generate a list of the factors that characterize the Gadianton robbers. Pres. Hinckley lists some. I will focus solely on the one at issue: “And thus they [the band of robbers of Gadianton] did obtain the sole management of the government” Hel 6:39
Do Muslim extremists have ‘sole management’ of the government? No. Therefore, they did not carry out the 9/11 attacks. The remaining question is what ‘terrorist organizations’ do who carried out the 9/11 attacks?
As if Pres. Hinckley was not enough Pres. Packer bluntly hit on the issue a few years later. ‘We must not ignore Moroni ‘s words when he saw our day and said, “Ye [must] awake to a sense of your awful situation”’ Pres. Packer, Do Not Fear, Apr 2004
What is the awful situation? Allowing Gadianton Robbers to ‘get above you.’ In what? The sole management of the government.
To think the Brethren are not political in their statements shows either blatant and willful disregard for their words or ignorance. Either way the plea puts one in a worse situation; like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
‘What evils lie in shadows to take us down?’ Of course, ‘if ye are prepared ye shall not fear.’ But have you read the verse in context? Try D&C 38:28-30 and that will answer your question.
“To this point, you have not offered up any convincing, credible evidence of problems arising within the next six months, the next year, or the next five years, politically. All your comments are at this point vague warnings with quotes taken out of context.” From Dan
Want some more? D&C 86:7, D&C 45:57, JS-M 1:12-14, Rev 13:16.
Shaun, I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with gathering together the words of our living prophets and making the case for the Constitution/etc.
I see them as illegitimate – and not backed by the voice of the people. I see them as anything but benign. You think warmongers like those involved in PNAC are benign? You think a plan to integrate the US, Canada, and Mexico into a multinational government without congressional oversight (or the support of the American people, who would obviously be against it if they were told about it) is benign?
The real people who want to destroy our country are not the “Islamo-fascists” from across the sea – the people who want to destroy us (and they don’t look at it as destroying us) are living right here in the US, and occupying chief positions in government.
Lohengrin,
Holy crap! I’ve never read section 38:30 in the context it was really meant! Thanks for that reference!
Lohengrin,
Now you are starting to mix things up and muddle the debate. When talking about secret combinations, I don’t think that anyone here disagrees that Al-Qaida would qualify as such. So President Hinckley’s comments in regards to Al-Qaida and terrorism don’t answer the question about American politics. The reason we’re on this topic right now is because of Kelly’s and Shaun’s belief about secret combinations from WITHIN. They quote from apostles and prophets during the Cold War about our situation today. I believe that those quotes are taken out of context, and as such, are not fruitful for a debate on politics today.
Furthermore, if I happen to not agree that the Democratic party and the Republican party and those in power are secret combinations, how would someone like Kelly and Shaun look at me? They would certainly start suspecting me as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This leads to a degradation of political discourse and is not fruitful, nor edifying.
Now, as far as D&C 38: 28-30, way to take it out of context dude! Let’s read further to get the right context:
Chris,
Well, that’s interesting isn’t it. You say they want to destroy us, but it doesn’t look to them as trying to destroy us, but then you wish to compare them to the Gadianton Robbers who’s intent was to destroy. Something doesn’t look right here. Can you see it?
Al Qaeda is an invention of the CIA. Indeed the very definition of a secret combination.
Dan,
Allow me to elaborate on what I meant by that qualifier…
The people who are in power (i.e. Bush and Co., the CFR, etc…) are advancing us toward a North American Union – with the eventual goal of a New World Order. I think they honestly believe that is what is best for our country – and so, in their opinion, they are not destroying anything, but rather building us into something better than the current system. Furthermore, the ends seem to justify the means for them – i.e. they are using subversive and secretive means to accomplish their purpose, with blatantly evident complicity from the media and many in Congress. It’s a matter of perspectives here; from their perspective, they are not destroying anything.
From my perspective on the other hand, they are destroying the very fabric of America, and extinguishing the already dim flame of government by, for, and of the people. The Constitution of the United States cannot exist under a North American Union, or a New World Order. To me it is the supreme law of the land, and anything placed above it (or even on par with it) in terms of government, negates its supremacy. Therefore, if the plans to create a North American Union ever reach their goal, it can only be through the destruction of the Constitution.
Both parties have been manipulated into pursuing this end goal (or allowing it to happen). Can I, in good conscience, vote for someone who will do nothing to halt their progress?
I will never pledge my allegiance to anything but the Constitution, and will die fighting to preserve it.
You say they want to destroy us, but it doesn’t look to them as trying to destroy us, but then you wish to compare them to the Gadianton Robbers who’s intent was to destroy. Something doesn’t look right here. Can you see it?
Do you think the Gadiantons (or any Lucifer-directed organization since Cain’s band) have not been deceived into believing that they are actually doing what is right for the people?
The Gadiantons in Nephite times didn’t just want to destroy the Lord’s Kingdom; they wanted to build Lucifer’s Kingdom. In order to do that, they had to remove the Lord’s Church, and the system of Government that God had given to the Nephites.
In our day, the Gadiantons want to destroy the very same things: i.e. our God-inspired system of Government and our Church.
At this time, however, I do not believe that they view our Church as a direct impediment to their progress. Though we have grown immensely in the last two-hundred years, we are still a very small portion of the population. Hence, the Church has not yet become a main target.
Our system of government, on the other hand, is being assaulted on every hand. The Constitution, which was endorsed by Jehovah Himself, is being attacked by the Gadiantons of today. And why are they attacking it? Because it stands in the way of their ultimate goal: to build up the Devil’s Kingdom. They have a grander plan in mind than just the destruction of our Freedom.
Do most of these Gadiantons currently know who they’re working for? Or what the end game is? I don’t think so – but the adversary is controlling them nonetheless.
The Kingdom of the Devil is based upon entirely different principles than the Kingdom of God – and the two cannot exist together, fully established, so the Gadiantons in our country want to destroy anything that will impede them in setting up Lucifer’s Kingdom.
Chris,
But don’t you see the difference from saying this to what you’ve been accusing them of being? It is one thing to believe that one policy may be detrimental to our nation, but wholly another to compare them with very evil people. Trying to compare them to evil people does you an injustice, harms your own understanding of complex problems, and only undermines any possible solution to a complicated question.
It is perfectly fine to think one kind of policy is bad. Heck, I think your ideas are bad for America. But I don’t think you’re evil, just misguided.
I should like to clarify, if that is possible, that I am NOT a Prophet, Seer or Revelator. I am not even a fatalist who seeks to find a myriad of reasons to fear for my life. I am merely a 60 year old man who has worked diligently over the last 5 years or so to grasp every bit of truth and doctrine which is available from the many sources at my disposal. I do not have a special gift for envisioning catastrophic futuristic events. The observations I make are purely my personal opinions based upon experiences, and knowledge gained from scripture study, prayer, and research. That being said, I do personally feel quite strongly that we are all capable of receiving personal revelation, and insight when we are actively and faithfully seeking it, and are prepared to ensure that our source is legitimate.
When it comes to identifying those who are part of the many secretive groups and organizations with which we must contend, it must be realized that the vast majority of the so-called players are dupes, and pawns who have little understanding of what is taking place in the shadows. One thing is obvious to me though, and that is the realization that they are generally people who are easily swayed by smooth talk, and highly emotionalized rhetoric.
I am learning in my later years to be confident that I would rather prepare, and expect the worse before catastrophe strikes than to be woefully unprepared relying upon false hopes that perhaps the adversary will change his plan, and all will be well. It just ain’t gonna happen that way.
I sincerely hope that Ron Paul will receive the kind of support he deserves, and even if he does not, I must take a stand for him, and his principles as a man of character who happens to be the only candidate right now, about whom I am certain will not be compromising his position on the most important considerations I find important. I like Mitt Romney, but I just cannot seem to feel the sense of comfort I need to continue to support him.
Chris,
I’m sorry to say but you do not seem to understand how the Constitution works. Article VI states:
That means that any treaty ratified by the Senate becomes the Supreme Law of the Land. You know what that means? That means the UN Charter is the Law of the Land of the United States of America, and that it is Constitutionally permissible, i.e. it was the Founding Fathers’ intent. That means that any treaty ratified by the Senate, as much as you may not like it, is Constitutional, and as such, you’re criticizing the very thing you claim you support.
The Constitution does not provide for its own destruction. Therefore, if the Senate approves a treaty/law/etc that fundamentally undermines the Constitution, I believe that it is unconstitutional. The Senate does not have the authority to destroy the Constitution – or even to harm it.
Chris,
Now you are getting ridiculous. You’re basically criticizing the Founding Fathers now. This is the Constitution THEY designed. They knew what it meant. You apparently don’t, and think the Constitution is something it is not. The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they put that provision in. Any treaty America signs and ratifies becomes the Law of the Land. As such, that law is Constitutional. If you feel a particular law is unconstitutional, challenge it in court, that’s what the Judicial branch is for. If you feel a treaty is wrong, then get people in power who will change that treaty, but be mindful that playing around too much with treaties will do greater harm to our national interest than you may realize. Other nations do not like it when signatories to their treaties go back on their word. But to say silly things like, “The Constitution does not provide for its own destruction,” as a rebuttal for what is in the Constitution itself shows your lack of knowledge in Constitutional Law.
I understand your desire to protect your nation, Chris, but please, learn your politics before you jump on any conspiracy theory. There’s a reason why so many of these conspiracy theories have so little traction in mainstream America.
That means that any treaty ratified by the Senate becomes the Supreme Law of the Land.
And how many Senators are even aware of the Security and Prosperity Partnership and the Transamerican Corridor? Who has oversight over the “working groups”? Certainly not Congress? Where are these programs getting their funding? Certainly not from any Congressionally approved bill.
Because such programs are sidestepping Constitutional mandates, they are instead done under the radar. Congress continues to shun its responsibilities to provide oversight and control over these affairs. Ron Paul, in this month’s edition of “The New American”, remarked in an interview about trying to get Congress to declare war and not abdicate that Constitutionally mandated directive to the executive:
Defer to the executive to use his best judgment?! Whatever happened to the Constitutionally directed system of checks and balances? As Glenn Greenwald remarks in his excellent book How Would a Patriot Act?:
Anything that goes against the Constitution, without being implemented as an amendment, is not law. As such, it should not be obeyed nor enforced upon American citizens. I take pride in knowing that there are soldiers who have fought back against the system, realizing that they swore to uphold the Constitution, not the tyrannical mandates of a dictatorial government.
From what I’ve seen thus far, Mitt Romney seems to be towing the party line with respect to foreign policy. That means more money, more soldiers, and more interventionism. Ron Paul takes the complete opposite stand, one of “peace and commerce between nations, and against entangling political and military alliances.”
Since when was voting only for someone who could win be the criteria for who to vote for. I thought we sing “Do what is right let the consequnce follow. Battle for freedom in spirit and might……”
Mitt Romney and appointed Vin Weber as chairman of his exploratory committee. Weber, who Romney praised to the hilt for his past policies, is not only a member but a member of the board of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Sorry, I do not uphold men who uphold the secret combinations. The CFR is definitely an arm of the secret combinations. Just because someone is LDS and has held an office has no bearing on their understanding and loyalty of the Constitution.
I am voting Constitution Party and I don’t give one care who wins because I know that each vote shows that at least 100 people believe the same way and it makes a statement. We have been manipulated into voting for the “lesser of two evils for two long and the lesser of two evils has turned out to be as evil and worse than the so-called evil choice.
How can the Saints expect to be protected if they compromise their vote and vote for the lesser of two evils. The next line of the above hymn is “God will protect you in dong what’s right”.
I choose to uphold the Constitution no matter the outcome.
Sharon
Connor,
That’s not accurate. You may not like it, but something ratified by the Senate becomes law, whether you like it or not. I may not like it one bit, but the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is law. The Patriot Act is law, as unconstitutional as it is. You can choose to break that law at your own peril, but I do remind you that our prophets have counseled us to obey the laws of the countries in which we reside.
As for how to overcome the corruption in our own government? Well, it might come down to a revolution, but I believe we need to work more cautiously, select leaders who will stand for what is right, but also have the power to do something. This is why I would never vote for a Ron Paul. He will not have the power to do anything because he does not have, and never will have, the kind of support needed to change a government of the size of ours. There are 300 million Americans, and about 130 million voters. You must have their support to change the system. Ron Paul does not have their support.
Our country has fundamentally changed due to the media, for both good and ill. The media on its own is not a secret combination, but a tool. There are certainly groups within the media (like the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth) that are secret combinations, whose only desire is to tear down good people, but the entire media is not a secret combination. It is a tool. The better you know how to run that tool, the more power you will have, and the more influence. Ron Paul has no influence over the media. As such, he has no political power. This is the way of things. And someone like Ron Paul cannot change this. He doesn’t have the power to change something like this. Even a revolution won’t change something like this. You’d better just get used to it. The media is here to stay. Better for you to attempt to find ways to control the media. One thing is to constantly get the truth out there. Don’t be cowered into fear by anyone. Let the truth fly. Let it spread.
Finally, you guys want good stuff for America, but you’re fighting a losing battle, because you’re fighting the wrong battle. Focus on where you can change things for the better. The media and the voters are very large and very powerful institutions to overcome in order to get someone like Ron Paul into government. You’ll go your entire lives and never get what you want.
oh and Bob Perry, the man behind Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, yeah, he’s now supporting Romney. It’s getting worse and worse for Romney, just how much he is selling out, so sad.
oh and congratulations, Connor, on getting what seems your first post with over 100 comments. 🙂
That’s not accurate. You may not like it, but something ratified by the Senate becomes law, whether you like it or not.
I suppose this can be boiled down to semantics. Perhaps it’s better to say that while it’s legal, it’s not lawful. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and anything (excepting amendments) that is contradictory to the laws it stipulates (such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act as you so aptly point out) is un-Constitutional, and therefore not lawful (though it is legal, since it is enforced under penalty of criminal prosecution).
He will not have the power to do anything because he does not have, and never will have, the kind of support needed to change a government of the size of ours.
And who in your mind, at this point in the campaign process, does? Also, what do you see as necessary steps to “change a government of the size of ours”? What laws would you like to see repealed? What programs would you like to see terminated? What politician out there has “promised” to do these things you’ll be answering in response?
One thing is to constantly get the truth out there. Don’t be cowered into fear by anyone. Let the truth fly. Let it spread.
Welcome to my blog. 🙂
Finally, you guys want good stuff for America, but you’re fighting a losing battle, because you’re fighting the wrong battle.
Some might make that observation about taking a stand for morality and the gospel message. But a stand we make, regardless of supposed opinions on the future outcome. We know what is to happen in the last days, we know whose side we are (or should be) on, and we know what what we are to be fighting for. I don’t compromise.
You’ll go your entire lives and never get what you want.
Nor will any politician who compromises his ideals and morals (:::cough::: Orrin Hatch :::cough:::) for political expediency. I’ll take a stand for what I know to be true and right, regardless of the outcome. Prophets have been stoned, lovers of liberty have been jailed, and missionaries persecuted, but the message of truth spreads nonetheless. Whether or not such a message will once again permeate the halls of Congress remains to be seen (I’m not holding my breath) but that does not affect my personal responsibility and divine mandate to boldly proclaim truth and not capitulate.
oh and congratulations, Connor, on getting what seems your first post with over 100 comments. 🙂
I owe it all to your stubbornness to debate the issue and prove a point. 😉
Connor,
No, it is still lawful; you will be punished for breaking any part of a law you may not like.
There are times to take stands, and there are times to be practical. Voting for someone who has no chance and no power is impractical, no matter how noble the stand might be. It might be better in the long run to take a stand for issues with candidates who have power than to go for candidates with the right issues but who have no power.
As for me, Barack Obama is at this point my favorite candidate. He best reflects my views. Does he represent all my views? Of course not. Nobody does. I’m a unique person with unique views, as we all are.
Now you are getting ridiculous. You’re basically criticizing the Founding Fathers now. This is the Constitution THEY designed. They knew what it meant. You apparently don’t, and think the Constitution is something it is not. The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they put that provision in. Any treaty America signs and ratifies becomes the Law of the Land. As such, that law is Constitutional.
I think Connor has done a good job rebutting this already – but I’d just like to put my two cents in.
Hypothetical situation: The UN passes a resolution which does away with the right to bear arms. According to your logic, I am now obligated to follow that law – and it somehow holds equal weight with the Constitution. What about the Bill of Rights? What about my right to bear arms?
What about any other situation in which a treaty which the Senate signs undermines or goes completely against something already contained in the Constitution?
I understand your desire to protect your nation, Chris, but please, learn your politics before you jump on any conspiracy theory. There’s a reason why so many of these conspiracy theories have so little traction in mainstream America.
Okay Dan, first you say my ideas are bad for America. Then you say I’m being ridiculous. Then you tell me I need to learn my politics. So where did you learn yours? You cite one portion of the Constitution, in order to justify the nullification of other portions of it. I guarantee you George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, etc, would have not signed the UN Charter into law – they would not have signed the SPP – they would not have declared war on Iraq – they would not be torturing innocent people right now – … the list goes on.
Now I’m a “conspiracy theorist”? I’ll tell you why “conspiracy theories” haven’t caught on in mainstream America. It’s because people can’t bear the truth and the implications thereof. Our country is asleep, and most of them would rather not wake up the reality of our awful situation. Why do you feel so motivated to continue debating with me and Connor and the others here? Do you feel like you need to guide us miguided people back to your reality? I’ve been there already Dan – and it’s not true. You are trying to defend people and organizations who are destroying the foundation of freedom in this land. Go ahead and defend them. Go ahead and assist them in taking away your freedom – but don’t try to get me to join you.
Chris,
Your comment reminds me of the following quotes:
For anybody who has yet to read it, I’d highly recommend None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen. It’ll be a good springboard into the realization of what secret combinations exist today. Doesn’t hurt that Ezra Taft Benson recommended it to the church body in general conference.
It amazes me how much the mainstream media has succeeded in connecting the word “conspiracy” with “nutjob”, “wacko”, and “extremist”. Of course, this is further evidence that the media is complicit, as David Rockefeller (modern day Gadianton) himself stated:
I’ll be comment #105 and just say that Ron Paul has my vote.
Connor, that’s the “New American” magazine which had the Ron Paul interview. You left the “n” off the end. 🙂
That’s a great magazine, by the way.
Fixed, thanks! And yes, it’s a great magazine. I just finished this month’s copy on the bus ride home today. I loved the interview w/ Ron Paul. He’s not afraid of taking a stand on the issues, as he’s done through his entire Congressional career. That presents such a stark contrast to most other politicians who use polls and focus groups to determine what they’ll say and do, and often lie, make what President Hinckley called “hollow promises”, and say whatever soundbyte will bump them up a few points in the polls. Lame.
Great quotes, Connor. This has been a great discussion – and has given me the impetus to finally start my own blog now – thanks for your great example.
It amazes me how much the mainstream media has succeeded in connecting the word “conspiracy” with “nutjob”, “wacko”, and “extremist”.
I thought this comment showed a breathtaking lack of self-awareness.
People connect the word ‘conspiracy’ and ‘nutjob’, not because the media tells them to, but because conspiracy theories are nutjobby! Wasn’t that simple? And I think I’m onto something with my ‘Katrina was an inside job’ theory. If you ask me for evidence, I’ll just paraphrase Chris: “Dude, of course I can’t provide any! It’s a secret combination! Duh.”
And Dan is doing an admirable job of straddling the divide — affirming that statements from Church leaders are true and yet trying to avoid the natural conclusions of those very statements. Which leads you to (sorry, Dan) arbitrary criteria — ‘okay then, gimme something after June 1990.’
I don’t have that conflict. Statements from Church leaders are ideas that they made up — some good, some bad. But McKay plugging Skousen from the pulpit? Pffft. I wonder why people’s heads didn’t explode.
Chris,
If the UN attempts a resolution which does away with the right to bear arms, the United States, holding veto power, will not allow such a resolution to pass, thus frustrating your hypothetical. You think the UN holds some special power over the United States when it really doesn’t. Your fears are unfounded.
You’re going to have to get specific, because frankly I see nothing right now.
I learned politics at BYU. As far as your comments about the Constitution, just what portions of the Constitution does Article VI nullify? And yes, the Founding Fathers probably would have signed and ratified the UN Charter. You have this misguided impression that the Founding Fathers were near gods. You ought to read more into Thomas Jefferson’s treasonous relationship with the French while Vice President to John Adams. Yeah, he worked with the French to undermine John Adams’ presidential tenure. They were normal people. They sought peace with other nations. They would have found the UN as the perfect solution to what had just occurred, World War II.
Dunno why. Guess it is in my nature to talk politics. I certainly have no delusions of convincing you.
fontor,
Do you know why I ask for comments from post-1990?
You think the UN holds some special power over the United States when it really doesn’t. Your fears are unfounded.
It only holds power over us so far as the think tanks and political elite continue to pursue the globalist agenda and push for implementing everything the UN decides (and soon enough, the NAU). We’re the UN’s biggest police force, and if you don’t believe that you should study the story of Michael New.
And yes, the Founding Fathers probably would have signed and ratified the UN Charter.
Ludicrous. By far, theirs was a foreign policy of “peace and commerce between nations, and against entangling political and military alliances.” One need only read George Washington’s farewell address for further evidence.
Connor,
Right, if we were to have followed Washington’s Farewell address counsel, then we never would have gotten involved in World War I and never provided the British with military support in World War II until the day the Japanese attacked us, declared war and had Germany follow suit in declaring war against us. The 20th Century provided challenges unlike anything seen by our Founding Fathers. The 21st Century is proving to be even more challenging. Be glad there is a UN, or our nation would have invaded far more countries than just Iraq and Afghanistan!
Dan,
May I humbly suggest that history can be and often is different from what we’re taught in our school history books? That it is also often different from what the media portrays and the public at large accepts?
World War One and Two were planned events by those who financially gain by waging war. It has been this way through the ages, and thank the heavens for the scriptures which so clearly show this simple fact. Consider the following words of Pres. J. Reuben Clark:
There are a number of books out there that document the intents of wicked men to lead our nation into war, using “false flag” operations to coax the public into accepting military action as “necessary”. Gulf of Tonkin, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, etc. The prescience of government regarding such actions is undeniable to those who have thoroughly studied both sides of the coin and leads one to know that these wars which the public think were “necessary” were far from it. They were contrived, planned, and, and guided by wicked, power-lusting men. Similar men now fill the ranks of globalist think tanks such as the BIlderbergs, CFR, and the Trilateral Commission (whose members occupy the upper echelons of our government) and continue to plan similar attacks (e.g. the PNAC document suggesting a “new Pearl Harbor” to bring about necessary change) to push us into war and world government.
You say you’re a student of politics, but I wonder, have you given an open mind and prayerful consideration to this side of the story?
Be glad there is a UN?! God help us all that the dastardly organization even exists, let alone counts this nation as one of its members. Ron Paul, who has a bill calling for our nation’s withdrawal from the UN, truly understands that such entangling alliances are completely antithetical to American patriotism and proper national defense. We are not the world’s police, and we are not meant to do the UN’s bidding at American taxpayer’s expense.
President Benson said it best:
Chris: “Dude, of course I can’t provide any! It’s a secret combination! Duh.”
Fontor (if that’s your real name), I can provide evidence. If you’ve read the rest of the blog, you know that this discussion has turned to a debate on the current trends and policies toward a North American Union. I can definitely document and provide evidence.
I agree with you that some “conspiracy theories” are “nutjobby” – in fact, probably most of them. The North American Union does not fall under that distinction, however. Neither does the 9/11 Truth Movement… and you have absolutely no authority to say that they are until you research the evidence that these “theories” are based on, and the reasoning behind them.
Statements from Church leaders are ideas that they made up — some good, some bad.
Well, Fontor, if it comes to choosing between your advice and the advice of Benson, Clark, or McKay – I think I’ll choose the advice of those whose names don’t sound like something out of a cheap science-fiction novel.
Connor,
Where did J. Reuben Clark say that? I’m curious of the citation and the context. Yes, context is highly important when quoting an Apostle.
Besides J. Reuben Clark, do you have any other source for this belief?
Really? Give examples please.
There’s no doubt that governments have created excuses to start fighting, but Pearl Harbor? Do you even understand what happened during that period, Connor? I think you need to take a step back and compare what conspiracy theorists are saying with the facts on the ground.
Of course I have. As a liberal, as well as a political scientist, I believe you learn more by studying everything you can. The glory of God after all is intelligence. That said, some of the theories you and your fellow commentators have presented here are loony. They are not factual. They are based on fears, not reality. As such, I discount them. It is one thing to stand for the good and the right, but wholly another to do so based on unfounded theories whose main hypotheses are grounded in fears.
We were the originators of the UN, by the way. It was America that had had enough of world wars. After saving the world from two world wars and utter destruction, the United States led the world in creating the UN. And it has been a very successful organization. Does it have major problems? You bet. Does it need a lot of reform? You bet. If there were no UN what would the world have looked like these past 60 years? That’s a good question, and I am curious to hear your response to it.
The UN’s bidding? Again, do you even know how the UN works?
And as far as President Benson’s views on foreign policy, well, he may have been a prophet, but his political views are not inspired.
Michael McKee,
Earlier you had stated you were concerned about the peace rally held today with a counter-rally held by the Gathering of Eagles. it seems to have gone off without problem.
I’m curious, what made you think there would be some kind of concern about this rally? Why would it be of such concern that would make you think our democracy was coming down? I understand some were commemorating an anti-war rally from the Vietnam Era which took place on this day, which ended up being somewhat violent. Also, we’re nearing the 4th anniversary of Bush’s war on Iraq. Was there something wrong with the people rallying in protest to the war? Or was your concern about the Gathering of Eagles doing something unDemocratic like trying to stifle free speech?
Dan,
You’ve learned Politics at BYU. I would recommend you get a grasp on the strong disgust that is felt from the other side, from prophets of 50 years ago, who certainly have instructed the living prophets to help steer things right. The prophets of the past have been “mentally stoned” and rejected. I hope you can grasp much from Boyd K. Packer’s talk to the J. Reuben Clark Law Society in February 2003. Note the warning to all of those men and woman, they will EACH stand accountable “PERSONALLY” to J. Reuben Clark for what they have done and what they are doing to his name. Imagine it? Few grasp the eternal significance and the prophetic reality of such a warning. Many of the duped fools did “reject” the prophets of 50 years ago, or they have never “searched the prophets diligently.” Such persons have now had warning given to them to understand J. Reuben Clark and what he stood for. He was one of the most unpopular Church Leaders in all of our history, because he was put in position to educate the people on political matters—which they were not happy to recieve.
J. Reuben Clark was a high powered Lawyer, top of his class from Columbia University. In his early legal career, one of the wealthiest men in the United States came and offered to be his “junior partner.” He of course accepted, and next to being Chief Justice, was about at the top of the game in terms of a legal career, as he now represented the lagest conglomeration of Industrialists and monopolists in all American History until that point in time. His employers were J. P. Morgan and his whole crew of Gadianton Robbers who combined to bring the United States into WWI, all of which is beautifully spelled out in great detail in G. Edward Griffin’s masterpiece: The Creature From Jekyll Island. J. Reuben Clark figured out this treachery after the war, realizing what they had done, and the massive billions they had earned from doing so. He began to agitate them about it, and they fired him. He then went out to Salt Lake City in 1923 and gave a profound talk in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, warning of these vicious wolves seeking to overthrow the US Constitution.
Woodrow Wilson too, having been used up and spit out by these manipulator’s (as they will do with Romney if elected) lamented in his broken and destroyed state, nearly to his point of death:
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
In 1937, after serving as Undersecretary of State, and then Ambassador to Mexico, President Clark, then a member of the First Presidency, stirred anger into the hearts of Latter-day “Aints” with a truth deficit, when he prophesied WWII. He said:
“The power people are now planning another war for you. They have made this depression last many more years than it would have ordinarily lasted. They got stock down to 14 cents on a dollar. They just bought up everything at 14 cents on a dollar, and they’re now ready to make additional billions as they put you through another world war.
“They’re going to have you pay for it. You’re going to be involved in it. You don’t think you’ll get involved, but they’ll say that for the peace of the world, you must come in, and you’ll feel so soft-hearted about it, you’ll come in. It will be just as big a mistake as World War I.” (The Life of J. Reuben Clark, Jr. September 1, 1992 Delivered at the Grantsville High School, Grantsville, Utah; The works of W. Cleon Skousen. (a Folio Infobase) published by Verity Software)
Well, there he did it, told the Saints what most did not want to hear. Rather, they preferred to listen to the lies spewing forth in “Fireside Chats” from their Traitor-in-Chief, rather than heed the inspired warning of a prophet of God, and give gratitude to the Almighty for such potent prophetic utterances.
In 1992, George Herbert Walker Bush (Bush Sr.) came to the Mariott Center in Provo Utah and spewed disgusting praise for the United Nations, and as I hear it reported, was issued an award. Foolish Latter-day Aints were duped by the “flattery” of his presence with them, not knowing of the “prophetic warnings” of dead prophets from 50 years ago. It was Joseph F. Smith who warned:
“Three things threaten the church from within” and first that he mentioned was “Flattery from prominent men of the world.”
Just last week a woman in my ward told me of her being in attendence with Bush Sr. and she discerned him to be an evil and malignant man. So, fortunately not all are “latter-day “aints.” Some members actually have discernment.
The year previous to his Provo Appearance, Skull and Bonesman, Trilateralist, CFR member Bush Sr. quoted his treasonous take:
“My vision of a New World Order forsees a U.N. with a
revitalized peacekeeping function. It is the sacred
principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter to which we
henceforth pledge our allegiance.”
Sacred Principles? No, Satanic ones. J. Reuben Clark in 1945 put out a 33 page letter to the editor in the Deseret News, exposing the United Nations for the abomination that it is. He warned that it was not a “peace document” but a “war document.” He’s been vindicated every whit.
Yet what of those today professing the name of J. Reuben Clark Jr., by way of being graduates of the law school that bears his name? The majority are washed up, sell out dupes, who think Bush Sr. is holy and ready to fill the next vacancy in the Twelve, rather than understand J. Reuben Clark, and what he stood for, as well as what a “giant” he was among men. President Clark was “booed” at the University of Utah, with a majority LDS student body. That is how unpopular he was with the stupid LDS people who were delighted to worship at the feet of FDR on the one hand, but mentally stone living prophets on the other.
24 Yea, wo unto this people, because of this time which has arrived, that ye do cast out the prophets, and do mock them, and cast stones at them, and do slay them, and do all manner of iniquity unto them, even as they did of old time.
  25 And now when ye talk, ye say: If our days had been in the days of our fathers of old, we would not have slain the prophets; we would not have stoned them, and cast them out.
  26 Behold ye are worse than they; for as the Lord liveth, if a prophet come among you and declareth unto you the word of the Lord, which testifieth of your sins and iniquities, ye are angry with him, and cast him out and seek all manner of ways to destroy him; yea, you will say that he is a false eprophet, and that he is a sinner, and of the devil, because he testifieth that your deeds are evil.
  27 But behold, if a man shall come among you and shall say: Do this, and there is no iniquity; do that and ye shall not suffer; yea, he will say: Walk after the pride of your own hearts; yea, walk after the pride of your eyes, and do whatsoever your heart desireth—and if a man shall come among you and say this, ye will receive him, and say that he is a prophet.
  28 Yea, ye will lift him up, and ye will give unto him of your substance; ye will give unto him of your gold, and of your silver, and ye will clothe him with costly apparel; and because he speaketh flattering words unto you, and he saith that all is well, then ye will not find fault with him.
  29 O ye wicked and ye perverse generation; ye hardened and ye stiffnecked people, how long will ye suppose that the Lord will suffer you? Yea, how long will ye suffer yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides? Yea, how long will ye choose darkness rather than light?
  30 Yea, behold, the anger of the Lord is already kindled against you; behold, he hath cursed the land because of your iniquity.
  31 And behold, the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that they become slippery, that ye cannot hold them; and in the days of your poverty ye cannot retain them.
  32 And in the days of your poverty ye shall cry unto the Lord; and in vain shall ye cry, for your desolation is already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure; and then shall ye weep and howl in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts. And then shall ye lament, and say:
  33 O that I had repented, and had not killed the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out. Yea, in that day ye shall say: O that we had remembered the Lord our God in the day that he gave us our riches, and then they would not have become slippery that we should lose them; for behold, our riches are gone from us. (Hel. 13:24-33.)
There is strong application of this scripture to our time, and Ezra Taft Benson made note of the above in the last talk he personally delivered by power of his own voice, right before he was “taken out of our midst.” Gordon B. Hinckley, Dear Dan, in August 2005 gave us great insight into the Book of mormon and it’s “scheming leaders” who burden the people with heavy taxes and draw them into long and costly wars. The spirit gives great instruction as to how such messages are indeed applicable to our very day and time. J. Reuben Clark in 1937 spelled it out most clearly and plain, and were “mentally stoned” for doing so. Prophets today don’t have such luxury of plain speaking as noted before in my quoting to you Joseph Smith speaking on why Christ spoke in parables, so as to not incite prematurely the wrath of the evil and wicked who would take his life, and those of his followers.
Yes, J. Reuben Clark was very unpopular when he passed away in 1961, he had been “mentally stoned” by a huge chunk of the saints. Fools. Such will be left to mourn, and even now the land is becoming cursed, and our riches are becoming “slippery” as the Dow Jones continues to sink, and will sink, as will the US Dollar, with the coming lucifarian system of ultimate compulsion with a new currency system under the damned North American Union which David Rockefeller is in jubilation over—all ills warned about by the prophets—messages not well received.
Dr. Skousen, just before he died, I heard it with my own ears, stated that J. Reuben Clark is rolling over in his grave for what they are teaching at the BYU law school which bears his name. Hence, Boyd K. Packer’s strong warnings to them—but alas—most are too stupefied by propaganda, not having “searched the prophets diligently,” (those of 50 years ago) to figure out the situation of today.
You can read Elder Packers talk at this link:
http://www.law2.byu.edu/Law_Society/events/packer.pdf
I hope you read it prayerfully and carefully. It will yield 100 times more information to the person who has “searched the prophets diligently” as a foundation to then see what this current, living prophet is giving to those with “eyes to see” and “ears to hear; hearts willing to adhere to the will of the Lord”
Chris,
Fontor is an ex-mormon atheist, so it’s not hard to see why he doesn’t give merit or attention to the words of the Prophets. FYI.
Dan,
Where did J. Reuben Clark say that? I’m curious of the citation and the context. Yes, context is highly important when quoting an Apostle.
Follow the link to Quoty and you can see the source.
Besides J. Reuben Clark, do you have any other source for this belief?
There are plenty of sources out there to learn about these sort of events. A few to start with are None Dare Call It Conspiracy, The Sorrows of Empire, Awakening to Our Awful Situation, Tragedy and Hope, How the World Really Works. Several other documents, web sites, papers, and books have led me to my conclusions that President Clark support in the quote I cited. In response to a request for where all my knowledge has come from, I might echo the words of President Hinckley:
You might also read the 1942 First Presidency Statement.
Really? Give examples please.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve…
Suffice it to say that it has always been a tactic of power-lusting men to incite their followers to anger and claim a grievance in order to wage war and bring their enemies into bondage. These enemies of liberty exist both within and without the government, as they did in Book of Mormon times. President Eisenhower once remarked:
Similarly, General Douglas MacArthur once commented:
That there exist political wolves in sheep’s clothing who claim to love liberty is supported and attested to by prophecy both ancient and modern. War is most often an evil campaign designed by men who lust for power and wealth, wasting innocent lives to satisfy their greed.
There’s no doubt that governments have created excuses to start fighting, but Pearl Harbor? Do you even understand what happened during that period, Connor? I think you need to take a step back and compare what conspiracy theorists are saying with the facts on the ground.
Do I understand what happened during that period? I might ask you the same question. There exist documents, memoranda, and testimonies to the fact that FDR had knowledge of the attack and let it happen (9/11, anybody?), while some other accounts discuss the administration’s exploration of ways to incite a Japanese Attack to serve as an excuse to enter the war. PNAC’s call for a “new Pearl Harbor” to do the same thing before our “war on terror” shows that the same mentality continues. Should you care to read more, try here, here, or here.
That said, some of the theories you and your fellow commentators have presented here are loony. They are not factual. They are based on fears, not reality.
What misperception! Far from fear, my opinions, studied truths, and political stance is one based on faith. Faith as you surely know is the antithesis of fear, so you could not be more wrong in your assessment! I cannot speak for the other commenters, but I boldly declare truth as I learn it, with full faith that our founding documents were inspired of God, that Jesus lives and will soon come to reign in a theocratic Republic, that the Lord can and does fight his own battles, and that although Satan governs the nations, the Lord is ultimately in control and will hold men accountable for their political actions.
The theories you and others so easily dismiss as “loony” deserve consideration. I myself enjoy skepticism when approaching alternative versions of history and future events, but approach such subjects with prayerful consideration and an open mind. President Benson once remarked:
Our duty is to waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light these things of darkness. Are we doing our duty? Or are we dismissing allegedly “loony” ideas because the popular version of history runs contrary to such possibilities?
We were the originators of the UN, by the way.
That wholly defends upon who you label “we”. If by “we” you mean the conspiratorial Council on Foreign Relations, with Soviet spy Alger Hiss at the helm of organizing the UN and its charter, then you would be correct. For a truer version of how the UN came into existence and what it really is all about, I suggest the book The United Nations Exposed by William F. Jasper. “As a liberal, as well as a political scientist, [you] believe you learn more by studying everything you can,” right? Let me know how you enjoy the book. 😉
If there were no UN what would the world have looked like these past 60 years? That’s a good question, and I am curious to hear your response to it.
It would be purely speculative and an attempt at fortune telling to try to predict such an alternate universe.
The UN’s bidding? Again, do you even know how the UN works?
Do you? 🙂
I strongly disagree! How do you find the grounds to make such an authoritative statement to downright dismiss anything political that was said by President Benson? Perhaps the following words apply:
It is my humble yet bold belief that time will vindicate President Benson and the Saints will be made to know that everything he said, political or otherwise, was prophetic and based in truth.
In an effort to bring in the thread’s original topic, I will conclude by saying that Ron Paul comes closest out of any current presidential candidate in believing and intending to implement everything President Benson said.
Also Dan,
Looks like you’re seeking sources to real history. Connor of course has given excellent ones. To hear Ezra Taft Benson, Dr. W. CLeon Skousen speak of this treachery, go to this link, download and listen to these astounding speeches. Then, let me caution a tendency:
“How we respond to the words of a living prophet when he tells us what we need to know, but would rather not hear, is a test of our faithfulness.” (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, pp. 139-140.)
I would hope that you do not foolishly take the words of much lesser men over these men. I’m amazed that some would worship FDR, while “mentally stoning” J. Reuben Clark. I am amazed that the ignorant, and uninformed constantly seek to trash the words of Ezra Taft Benson, rationalizing away his powerful speeches, teachings and talks. Watch therefore, that ye be not decieved, and foolishly believe treasonous men over inspired prophets, seers and revelators who the Lord God raise up to warn and instruct. I’m amazed that so many will say “well, that is just ETB’s opinion.” Even if that be merely only an opinion, what man or men, pray tell me, would I choose wisely to take precedence? A CFR ravening wolf? I perverse Establishment historian spewing propaganda in the history books?
Here is a link to some powerful talks, filled with spirit, truth, conviction as few do to such an extent.
http://www.awakeandarise.org/Benson.htm
Dan
I had considered responding to your query about my comments concerning the Washington, D.C. gathering. However, I chose to avail myself of the opportunity to take the advice of Shaun’s suggestion to read the remarks made by Elder Packer once again. I am grateful to Shaun for providing me with a thoroughly uplifting opportunity. Comparatively speaking, I was able to better understand what is meant by “On the Shoulders of Giants.” I now have an even greater testimony of the reasons why I have revered the names of Ezra Taft Benson, J. Reuben Clark, and W. Cleon Skousen. I am also reminded of the wisdom displayed in the following:
“A young university student of political science once spoke to Elder Lee about the student’s vigorous disagreement with President Clark’s lecture “Our Dwindling Sovereignty” at the University of Utah. Elder Lee’s response was, “Yes, I suppose it would be difficult for a pygmy to get the viewpoint of a giant. When I go to hear world authority…, I go to learn and not to criticize.”
With those profound final words uttered by President Lee, I could add nothing further to this conversation.
Connor,
“I knew that the administration was moving toward initiating military action, so I moved that Congress declare war against Iraq, and I indicated that I intended to vote against my own measure because I didn’t think we should start such a war. I made the motion because I don’t like the idea of ignoring the Constitution that grants power only to Congress to send the nation into war. Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) responded to what I offered by saying, “There are things in the Constitution that have been overtaken by events, by time. Declaration of war is one of them. There are things no longer relevant to a modern society. We are saying to the president, use your judgment. [What you have proposed is] inappropriate, anachronistic; it isn’t done any more.” And so we went to war once again without a congressional declaration. And the war power possessed by Congress alone was ignored.”
Good Cite. I like Ron Paul more for this. I totally and wholeheartedly agree that congressional declaration of war within X amount of time (isn’t it 90 days?) is a really, really good idea, not unlike many really good ones thought up by the founders of the Constitution.
Also, if I understand your tangent with Dan your position is that basically that all wars are motivated by select persons of power who have much/the most to gain. They then propagandize their interests and ally them with any others that may parallel and off to war a nation will go.
I agree with this. I think it happened in all wars on the aggressors side.
I believe, after reading JR Clark’s speech and some of your other cited works, and from my own reading, that this is not a novel insight nor surprising. So I am wondering if Dan is approaching it from a more conspiratorial context then JR Clark, Eisenhower, Washington etc…meant. Because if JR Clark’s talk is taken at face value, all wars are the result of broad based conspiracies to take resources, and no war is ever waged without the elite consent (unless a revolution).
Kelly and Shaun, who I think are waaaay out there on the conspiracy fad, use such a broad brush to define a gadianton robber, I think they encompass the very nature of politics outside of a pure demcracy (which we are not) They then go with a very small boat into the very deep end of a sea of apocalyptic theories by intermingling select scripture (very, very carefully selected quotes and scriptures in a necessarily narrow and contracted lens of interpretation…ignoring all context involving changes in time, country, characters, technology, and culture that accompanied their cites) with the ideas of men. But it is all quotes and ideas….with little substance or fact.
Also, I like the UN, but not as it now is. I’m a big fan of the idea and some of the realized results. But unfortunately, I think siince we decided to steamroll it on our way to war…it’ll be decades before any country of influence ever listens to it again–evidence is Iran. A pity.
Romney talks tough on national security b/c I think he does believe in keeping a strong national defense (I resist the temptation to digress onto issues of defense spending).
I think he keeps pretty mum on criticizing Bush b/c it wouldn’t be a constructive route to resolving the problem nor a politically savvy move. His lack of criticism and tough talk do NOT mean that he supports the methods by which we were duped into Iraq or that he agrees with the execution of the endeavor.
I once again reiterate that Romney is neither a warhawk or neocon, but a traditional defense conservative who supports the not-surprising conservative favor for strong defense.
I really don’t think that there is a candidate in the race who will continue Bush’s tack. It has shown itself to be fascinatingly destructive, costly, inept and dishonest in a remarkably short period of time.
I think you’ll see conservatives openly disavow Bush and his legacy after he leaves office. He was not a conservative, he grew the government in all areas except education. His political cronism necessitated unpredented pork. He’s given us huge debt. Has been overbearingly aggressive and dishonest with regards to the use of defense forces: (smaller number of troops vs overwhelming number used by GH Bush and pleaded for by his-then secretary of State Colin Powell)
The only conservative thing he hasn’t done is raised taxes.
Romney will do better. Even you, Connor, must agree that Romney and McCain, despite thier lack of criticism of Bush aren’t anything like Bush.
Michael McKee,
Thanks for commenting, though I am saddened not to hear an explanation about your thoughts about today’s peace rally, and counter rally by the Gathering of Eagles.
As to your quoting Elder Lee, your basically saying that I cannot criticize someone like J. Reuben Clark because he is a “giant” and I should rather stand at his feet in awe of his greatness. Doesn’t that sound odd to you guys? Does that not go against what Joseph Smith taught us about our position vis a vis our religious leaders?
Hugh B. Nibley spoke on the subject at length
You guys dismiss my knowledge of politics and religion, yet treat J. Reuben Clark’s knowledge as omniscient. This is not what Joseph Smith taught us. Even J. Reuben Clark stated:
I’ve pondered and prayed on the subject of politics, and I do not believe J. Reuben Clark’s comments are pertinent to my time. And here is why I keep asking for quotes from prophets since 1990. A significant event occurred that changed the course of our world. Communism fell. Most of what Apostles like J. Reuben Clark warned us about stemmed from the growing tide of communism. Some wasn’t of course. Context is then important. Just what was he saying, to whom was he saying it, etc. I can collect numerous quotes at will that will prove my ideology correct, but alas, is not a complete picture, and as such I do my readers a disservice.
What have prophets since this massive change said about American politics? Kelly was kind enough to give us that answer. They stay neutral. What does that mean for each one of us individually? Well, we each can then ponder and pray about various candidates or issues and take positions as we feel is most correct. You guys choose to highlight the words of Apostles from a different era. You’re perfectly in your right to do so. But to then castigate those who don’t and who disbelieve some of those comments as “stoning” the prophets is not following your own religion. I don’t question that J. Reuben Clark, or anyone else from that era, was inspired. Hardly. I question using their quotes to talk about politics today when our prophets today give us guidance that says we choose for ourselves. There’s a disconnect. And it degrades the political discourse. There’s no room for a debate, because you’ve taken upon yourself the position of one who you see as “authoritative.” How could I dare question someone “authoritative,” after all, as Elder Lee said, he’s a giant, and a pygmy can’t well understand a giant. Such poppycock! I could, at this point, whip out some quotes from Elder Lee on blacks and really discredit his position, but that’s a wrong thing to do. He was a man who thought very highly of himself and those in high positions. No one dare question them, even though our first prophet Joseph Smith taught otherwise.
Understand that when you start quoting prophets in political discourse, you’re ultimate point is to pull the rug out from underneath your political opponent. After all, if your political opponent doesn’t agree with your position, he therefore doesn’t agree with a prophet. Gasp! Such sacrilege. As such, if he doesn’t agree with a prophet, you do two things. 1. In your mind you’ve totally discredited your opponents positions and beliefs. There can be no possibility of your political opponent of being correct, because hey, he disagrees with a prophet. 2. You begin calling him to repentance. You start to accuse him of stoning the prophets.
I really could care less how many prophets you guys quote. Seriously. I’ve read them all. Yet here I am a politically liberal Mormon, and in the bishopric of my ward. Gasp! I take a different position on the problems and perils of this world for many reasons. And I am not wrong in doing so.
Connor,
You stated originally the following:
And then you said that scriptures proved that this was a common occurrence. Surprised at that assertion, I asked for references. Your references do not prove this, Connor. Your references certainly prove that bad people convinced otherwise peaceful people to attack others to control others but not for “financial gain.” Your assertion (and that of J. Reuben Clark) is that World War I and World War II were fought by those who could make money off the wars. I cannot think of any example in scripture where this happens to be the case. Furthermore, when looking at all the evidence of both World War I and World War II, we see that this is not the case. Even if you had some master puppeteers (besides Satan and his angels of course), they can only push people as far as they are willing to be pushed. World War I was going to be fought whether or not Gravrilo Princip assassinated Franz Ferdinand. This you would know if you understood the warring nations and their sad relations one to another. The fire was going to be lit sooner or later. Germany, France, Britain, and Russia had wanted to do battle, and were going to whether anyone of them liked it or not.
There are other reasons people lead others to fight besides monetary gain. Your own scriptural references prove that. You did not offer me any scriptural evidence that puppeteers began wars for financial gain.
True enough, FDR could have not sanctioned the oil heading to Japan (which was Japan’s main impetus for attacking the United States). True enough, he might have known that such an action, sanctions against Japan, would have inevitably led to war with Japan. But to say that FDR wanted war with Japan and Germany to gain control of the world is sophomoric. And you took the First Presidency message of 1942 out of context it seems. Their condemnation was not over America’s involvement but rather of communism or fascism, which ever won in the end:
They condemned the possible outcomes of the war, not of America’s involvement in it.
I have considered them. I’ve read Benson’s The Enemy Within. I found it to be a profound book. Do I agree with everything he says? Politically, no.
Oh I’m with you here. When I’ve noticed a secret combination, I’ve mentioned it, over on my blog. The Council for National Policy is most assuredly a secret combination. The Swiftboat Veterans for Truth is most assuredly a secret combination. The Council on Foreign Relations is not. As far as loony ideas in relation to popular ideas, by the mere fact that I’m a strong Mormon, you should know that I don’t do popular, but what is right. And there still are loony ideas, because they don’t fit all the facts.
Truer? Dude, the author belongs to a group that thought that Eisenhower was treasonous! I’m sorry but it is hard to take anyone like that seriously. Would I ever read the book? No, probably not. I’ll probably start reading it and begin finding all his errors and want to write a book debunking his whole theory. But then I would probably stop, because I would know it was a waste of time. 😉
Woah woah woah, hold your horses, Connor. Where did I say that I dismiss anything political by Pres. Benson? I merely said that his political views are not inspired. Does a person need to be inspired for his political views to be taken seriously these days? You’ve gotta break this bond between religion and politics, dude. Yes, I do not find President Benson’s political views to be spiritually inspiring. I also happen to not agree with most of his political views. Is this okay? Most assuredly it is. I don’t question his calling as prophet, in the least bit.
That’s fine and all, but don’t hold me to your standard. And don’t think of me as apostate if I disagree politically. And no, he probably will not be vindicated that “everything he said, political or otherwise, was prophetic and based in truth.” Sorry.
Dan
You really must try to utilize a little more humility in your delivery. Your arrogant postulating, and self reference leaves little room for a dialogue of substance. Who would stand a chance against your omniscient powers of persuasion. I certainly would not attempt to challenge your abilities with my addled mind.
I really am growing weary reading your words, and quite frankly, I find you obnoxious, and your declaration of being in a Bishopric of a Ward was, in my opinion, quite irritating.
I think I’ll choose the advice of those whose names don’t sound like something out of a cheap science-fiction novel.
Vile slander! Beware the wrath of fontor from the galaxy of Engnor!
Dan — I do understand the 1990 thing. I really like where you’re coming from, honestly, and I applaud your efforts in this discussion.
You’ve accurately noted a very irritating tendency among religious believers, but I don’t know if you can escape playing the same game. I feel like you’re getting the right answers, but not for good reasons. I sometimes say that if you use bad reasons to get to your conclusions, you’ll get right answers more or less randomly.
So you might say something like “I arrived at this conclusion by ponderment and prayer,” but then someone else can reasonably say “Well, I pondered and prayed too, and got the opposite conclusion,” and then what do you do? You could say something like “Well, maybe your answer was Satan trying to trick you,” and then they say “No, you,” and then you say “No, you.”And then I come along and say, “You guys, you’re both right!” No, wait, I don’t say that. I say “Of course you got opposite answers because revelation is just what you think, and prayer doesn’t work, and God is imaginary.” And then Connor says, “But you’re an atheist.” And then I say “Touché.”
How can I get this across? This comment thread is riddled with the fallacy of ‘Appeal to Authority‘. Having accepted the LDS belief system, you now have to dodge the most extreme quotes from church leaders that anyone can find. You’ve decided to reject such quotes because they’re old and no longer apply, which is a reasonably good approach (such as it is), but it leaves you at the mercy of more recent or even future quotes. You also have to defend yourself against charges that you’re picking and choosing, or ignoring the prophets, which is unspeakably irritating for a faithful person to hear.
Trying to fight conservative Mormons in this way is extremely difficult because the preponderance of quotes are conservative. You’re playing on their ground, and the resulting rhetorical gymnastics can really be exhausting. (Been there, done that! Oh yeah, Connor — you forgot ‘ex-Mormon liberal vegetarian atheist.)
I don’t know what I’m trying to say here, except that I admire your pluck and your liberalness, and I hope it doesn’t bring you horrible amounts of mental torsion throughout your life. Since I’ve learned more about critical thinking, my footing has been a lot more solid. Yeah, I’ve had to give up some cherished beliefs, but I count this as gain.
Big smooches to all. It’s a lovely Sunday morning here.
Michael,
As irritating as Elder Lee’s words were to me:
Political discourse would serve us both better if we both avoided such talk.
Fontor,
That is good sound advice. I probably should stop here. I totally forgot about the logical fallacy of appealing to authority. It really does make it very hard to have a good political debate. This debate here is light in comparison to previous times I’ve met up with similar thinking Mormons. I should give kudos to Connor and his commentators for being as polite as they’ve been to me, compared to others who believe likewise.
I do find a debate with someone who believes something completely opposite from my belief to be stimulating. It keeps me on my toes. It ensures that I have my beliefs for good sound reasons, and not because they are the norm, or popular, etc.
Dan,
Communism Fell? Pull your head out of the sand. Communists continue to murder their citizens all over China. Communism fell? Wrong. It’s never been stronger, bringing into the fact that world wide socialism is greater than ever before. Gorbechev boasts of this, and that world socialism is stronger than ever before.
The First Presidency in 1979 warned of the threat of communism, the greatest anti-Christ power on earth. That same year, Ezra Taft Benson, then President of the Quorum of twelve stated in Conference some important things, and they are more applicable to us now as we have entangled ourselves with the tentacles of communism—specifically Communist China, despite screaming warnings from true conservatives—indeed, these warnings of the past are much more applicable today than in 1979.
Clearly Dan, for you to speak about “communism” being dead seems about as stupid a statement as any, in saying it’s “dead” you ignore the most brutal regime on earth of the most populous nation. Additionally, we have seen the Monroe Doctrine trashed. True Conservatives, Ron Paul surely would have been among them, opposed giving the Panama Canal to the Communist Chinese, which was done by Bill Clinton and a treasonous Republican Congress, despite cries against this by great American patriots, obviously those not educated at the liberal BYU. 🙂
Furthermore, as predicted years before, the Soviet “fall” of communism was a planned KGB staged event, disclosed to us by the KGB Soviet Defector Anatoliy Golitsyn in his book that is another must read: “New Lies For Old.” How accurately he described the “failure” of communism and it’s “fall” to the west, when in reality it was a plan put forth in the KGB decades before, declair “communism dead” then have a massive disarming of the west followed by the nuclear smashing that would take place against “Amerika.” J. Reuben Clark prophesied that nuclear attack as he did WWII.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Lies-Old-Anatoliy-Golitsyn/dp/0945001134
Oh man, where to even start with this whole thing. I hope you take Connor’s advice to get “None Dare Call it Conspiracy” to start off and then follow with these other books, to grasp and understand what secret combination it is that is gaining control of all nations, lands and countries, as Moroni warned of, but which most LDS people refuse to grasp and acknowledge, which displeases the Lord, leaving us under “condemnation, a scourge and judgement,” as we censor and ignore one of the very major themes of the Book of Mormon.
As we see, we are now entangled in the tentacles of communism now as never before, as we give aid, trade, technology, and every other advantage to the murdering Chinese Communist Government. As Joel Skousen reports in his “World Affairs Brief” the Russians are gearing up for their nuclear strike upon this nation. When that happens, perhaps then some of the sleeping latter day saints will begin to believe the words of prophets that they have long “mentally stoned.”
We have forfieted the protection of the God of this land, almost totally, as we are “entangled with the tentacles of communism.” Decades ago, even nearly 50 years, Ezra Taft Benson was forced to be host to a great satanic murderer, Nikita Kruschev. Benson records that day in these words:
Indeed, those global elite Gadianton Robbers, actually Satan himself, who runs communism, laughs at the stupid, ignorant, blinded and sleepy American People, now ripe and ready to “fall like overripe fruit” into murderous communist hands.
Dan, here is another statement of a dead prophet—who, if living—you might enjoy mentally stoning:
Of course, it is of note that Satan was dethroned from control of the US Government when “Duh-Bya” was elected President. That no one can dispute, and therefore, sweep this old, antiquated prophetic statement under the rug.
Truly though, Satan rejoices in the duped of the people. As Ezra Taft Benson lamented, the Elders are asleep:
Additionally he stated:
The Elders continue to slumber Dan. They are under condemnation, a scourge and judgement, inundated by propaganda, unable it seems to detect the “enemies of Christ.” The more part have “been seduced” to believe in the works of the gadianton robbers, and partake of their spoils. They eat up their propaganda and lies, Satan’s lies, all it would seem enjoy such teaching, except this man here, that woman there who somehow don’t quite buy what is being taught, inspired people who don’t eat up the propaganda line, Satanic lies dealing with history and “how things really are.”
If you know any pertaining to the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, it would be good to help alert them as to the condemnation that will be theirs if they fail to awaken, for they will at some point sit and give an accounting “personally” to that “giant” of a man for what they have done with his name.
I would also wonder if those educated at Brigham Young University might need to give an accounting as well to Brigham for what they’ve done with his name, a prophet whose words are not merely 50 years old, but 150 years old, clearly irrelevant to our day and time.
Shaun,
I have a choice to make here. Continue on, debating, or stop. I choose to stop. I’ve heard all your arguments before. I’ve debated them before. You’ve not offered me anything new. To continue would be circular. Further, your continuous use of the logical fallacy of appealing to authority makes any debate with you difficult.
Vote for Ron Paul. Please. The more people you get voting for him, the better chance there is of my candidate winning the 2008 election. Please, do me that favor. 🙂
Fontor
I sincerely hope you will indulge me while I confess to you that I have been impressed with your name several times today. (Perhaps I mean your personality more than your name.) Having read your comments on this post and others in the past, I have wondered how you arrived at your current atheistic views. Would you consider relating, in a short, but concise fashion what led you to your present conclusions that you no longer believe there is a being referred to as God. Please do not misconstrue my reason for asking as I am, in no way, attempting to spring anything on you which would be other than respectful of your agency. I have no ulterior motive other than personal concern for my brethren notwithstanding their rejection of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps I am just a naive old fool, but I always feel saddened to find that a brother or sister who held membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could ever give up on the Lord or willingly decide to no longer be in pursuit of eternal happiness. I sincerely do not mean to impose, but I really feel as though I have lost a family member when I hear of someone leaving the Church even if I have never met them upon this earth. I will appreciate your acceptance of my request, but I’ll not think any less of you as a child of God for declining to grant my intrusive desires.
Sincerely, Michael L. McKee
Connor
I hope you will forgive my utilizing this post for this request for Fontor to consider an answer. I really saw no other way to accomplish my desire.
Shaun,
The more you write, the less credible you sound. Very little of your rants are based in fact. You appeal to things others wrote as if the mere fact that you didn’t say it first makes it more credible. Most of your points are fantastic and exhausting digressions, and they are also often demeaning to those whom you address.
Dan- you should have jumped ship when you saw:
“Communism Fell? Pull your head out of the sand. Communists continue to murder their citizens all over China. Communism fell? Wrong. It’s never been stronger, bringing into the fact that world wide socialism is greater than ever before. Gorbechev boasts of this, and that world socialism is stronger than ever before.”
as a prelude to another 20 pages of nonsense. He confuses communism and socialism in his introductory paragraph and fails to distinguish between Chinese Communism and its increased liberalization and the cold war communism to which you refer and as did the “giants” he quotes.
I’ve found that when debating via posts, it is best to ignore those who 1) take things personal; 2) fails to cite credible and/or applicable sources; 3) frequently use the classic logical fallacies; 4) ever compare anything to Hitler/Nazism.
Shaun quaifies for 3 of 4.
I’m personally am glad that Dan appealed to his own authority as a member of a bishopric inside the LDS church because it was a natural defense against the manipulative selective citations of GAs and Apostles who have passed on and can’t defend the twisted application of thier words.
The subject here was Romney and Paul. I learned a lot about Ron Paul and now harbor a bit more affection for the fellow and his positions. I’ll try and keep an open mind and not marry my vote off too early. For now, I still feel Romney is the candidate for me because I think he is honest, successful, smart, and a natural leader. Frankly, I am a pragmatist about the salesmanship/branding involved in politicking so the jousting over such relatively benign and difficult issues as abortion and gay rights doesn’t really bother me.
Again Connor, Thank you for the provocative thread.
When did Communism die? China holds most of our foreign debt, and they could destroy the economy of the USA by just deciding to stop holding our dollars. What in the world would we do without all those Chinese products in Walmart?I think we need to be awfully aware of Communist China when it comes to our trade deficit with them.
Kelly,
Boy, the contradictions in your comment…Communism is supposedly antithetical to capitalism, but yet here we are, Americans, holding so many products produced in China. Not only that but China has made some very smart capitalistic moves over the past 20 years. I think it is time for some to reconsider their views about how to classify China. A simple “Communist China” just doesn’t cut it, just doesn’t fit the facts on the ground.
Really, the only nation that is communist right now is North Korea. Cuba might be considered communist, but they’ve made a lot of moves towards capitalism.
The trouble with these labels is that there needs to be a separation between communist economic principles and political ideology. Ideologically speaking, there is no communism anywhere in the world, not as Marx predicted. You get Leninism, which ends up being a form of totalitarianism. But to then claim totalitarianism and communism are one and the same is again doing a disservice to the facts on the ground. Economically speaking only one, maybe two nations in the world are communist, and both are pariah states (though like I said, Cuba is coming out of it).
So how do we classify and label China? That’s a tough one. The simplistic, simpleton label just won’t cut it. The moment you can no longer accurately describe them, is the moment you start to lose power to them. China is run by a one-party government politically. Economically they are capitalistic, with less and less control by the government over economic practices. Businesses can do practice with whomever they want in the world. Politically, only one party has legitimacy. Anyone that wants to work in the government works in that party. Party rules are surprisingly good at keeping members in check, so corruption is not as high as one would assume. This kind of government works well within China’s culture, a culture bred out of millennia of empirical rule and Confucianism, a philosophy that prioritizes the community over the individual, something which Americans do opposite.
It would be foolish to look at China as an enemy. It is better to look at them as a competitor. It would serve our foreign policy far better, and would bring China and the United States closer together rather than farther apart.
Can some Americans do this? I think not. I think some are so stuck on words of men written 60 years ago that they can’t see that we actually won and the world has actually changed.
Dan,
Interesting points you make, for sure. Do you care to also comment on my observations that China could cripple our economy with one simple decision to stop holding our dollars, bringing upon the US economy a scenario like it describes in Revelation chapter 18? And on our huge trade deficit with them?
I made an interesting observation yesterday in Ogden’s newspaper. An article was comparing the major candidates on some issues with each other, Clinton, Obama, McCain, Romney. As a sidebar to the issue was a list of Democrat and Republican candidates that were also considered “candidates” and in that list was to be found Al Gore (!) but NOT Ron Paul. I found this extremely telling how someone who has NOT declared to be running found himself on the list (Gore) yet someone who HAS declared found himself to be denied recognition on the list. Hmmm.
Kelly,
What is your evidence that China could “cripple our economy” with the one decision to stop holding our dollars?
As far as the huge trade deficit, it certainly is a worry. This is more a problem of our consumerism than anything China is doing. We’re fat people, in more ways than just physiological. We like things big, we like lots of it, and the fact that we import far more than we export is a very troubling aspect of our economy. Is there some “secret combination” to blame for this? No, we have to blame ourselves, our voracious appetites for material gains.
I found this extremely telling how someone who has NOT declared to be running found himself on the list (Gore) yet someone who HAS declared found himself to be denied recognition on the list. Hmmm.
Yeah, unsurprising I would say. The Pajamas Media straw poll also shows the media bias that prevails, as after overwhelmingly winning one round, the powers that be excluded Ron Paul’s name from the list (while including names of other people not even running for president!), preventing him from receiving votes in successive rounds. The last paragraph of the article sums it all up:
What is your evidence that China could “cripple our economy” with the one decision to stop holding our dollars?
That’s another subject for another post. And one that Ron Paul certainly understands.
Each time I attempt to peruse the words which Dan posits unceasingly, and relentlessly, I cannot seem to grasp his motivational objective. One would prefer to consider the possibility that he is altruistically inclined, however, I am simply unable to recognize the merit in his approach. While we are all able to bring both specialized and generalized knowledge to the forum of discussion and debate, Dan, it seems, desires to be the final authority on the matter at hand.
Perhaps I do err in my thinking when I proclaim that my words are generally laced with some fact, but are mostly opinions formulated by much reading and investigative research from sources I consider to be reliable and motivated by the same reasoning. While Dan seems determined to convince us that his view is unquestionably accurate, and accuses us of relying too much upon dead prophets who are unable to correct us if we misrepresent them, I see little reference to his sources, and the authority by which he so fervently declares his seemingly irrefutable evidence to the contrary.
What good is possibly realized when we, myself included, are so convinced of our invincibility conversationally that we overlook our inherent unworthiness before Him who has given us a gift of discernment should we conclude to appropriately utilize the apparent power possessed therein.
I do not desire to engage in sarcasm or haughtiness when I communicate, but my puniness before the Word is much to glaringly obvious that I, no doubt, rely upon pride to cover my lack of spiritual guidance. While I cannot pronounce this inadequacy upon others with any sense of certainty, I believe I’ll do so anyway since that fact is scriptural. By the way, I cannot guide you to the particular scripture(s) in this case or many others, for that matter, but I know with certainty that I have read them, in many cases, more than once, from the Words of Christ or His Servants which are found within the context of the Standard Works.
Just as Dan proclaims we have given him no evidence that indicates our current Prophets, Seers and Revelators since 1990 have given us guidance in favor of the prophetic utterances from 60 years ago by their predecessors, he has not shown us any evidence they have told us to ignore them.
Furthermore, Dan tells us communism is dead because the wall fell, and some source(s) he uses declare his beliefs to be the truth. He is entitled to grasp at the arm of flesh just as much as I or any of the rest of us are inclined to do, but we all know what the scriptures would say about that kind of foundation upon which we might consider building our impenetrable fortress of wisdom.
With all due respect to Dan and others who would attempt to dissuade me from holding fast to my current beliefs that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true, and that my worldview is closer to reality than theirs may be, I must tell you that you are wasting valuable time in better preparing yourself for the onslaught of adversarial destruction which is coming our way if we do not rise to the occasion, and take a firm, immovable stand for Jesus Christ and His Prophets. Your words may resonate with some whose foundation is built upon a less firm substance than the truth as delivered by those Prophets, but I would implore you to consider the possibility that what some of us believe may be a wiser approach just in case your understanding is flawed by an overly fixated view that man may some how be able to save himself with his intellect, and knowledge which, when tainted by the influence of Lucifer, will ultimately result in the loss of the Celestial glory which Heavenly Father would desire to see all of us receive.
I for one will never again permit myself to consider taking chances on my eternal progress toward that glorious reward since I have already spent far too many years taking the advice of Satan whether it was through his own promptings or through the words of his prophets. I am in no way intimating that Dan or anyone else involved in this thread (topic of conversation) is a willing tool in the hands of Satan, but I am certain we are all capable of being unwittingly enticed to accept the philosophies of men as having worthwhile or meritorious possibilities. I know that the founders of our Constitutional foundational principles were not perfect men, but I’ll take their word as originally inspired before I’ll have faith in those who are currently attempting to steer our ship of state with the exception of Ron Paul.
As for Mitt Romney, I have a deep respect for him and I still believe he will, at some point, “choose the right,” politically speaking, but he simply does not have as firm an understanding of the original Framer’s Constitution as does Ron Paul. Like many other good intentioned souls, he (Mitt)supports the current facsimile of our Constitution as being the so-called “law of the land” which I firmly and resolutely believe retains only a “thread” of the intended power given it by our founders, and inspired and blessed by our Savior Jesus Christ. That being said, any allegiance to the current sham as purported by many of our politicians, including President Bush, is an exercise in absolute futility, and many of them know it. Hopefully, Mitt is simply like many other Americans who have a gross misconception of the power vested in the Supreme Court. He does seem to understand the rights of individual states, but he has come down too many times on the wrong side of Federal interpretation.
This has been a thoroughly perplexing conversational adventure, but I do sincerely believe all participants have had the opportunity to pontificate, perhaps, too much, at the expense of Connor’s patience. I do know that I have grown wiser from the experience, and am even more certain that Ron Paul is the only right choice available currently.
Michael,
I don’t know if I should be offended or not. I don’t know where I even tried to knock down your faith in Jesus Christ in this thread. I have not anywhere made anything close to a claim that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not true, and as such, wonder where you even get the idea from in the first place. To assert that I have tells me that you keep your belief in the Gospel of Jesus Christ too close to the events of the world around you, and when someone comes along to challenge your views about the world around you you get defensive about your faith in Jesus Christ. This is not good for a healthy political debate, as proven here that it has gotten personal to you, Mr. McKee.
Dan,
Sam of course would dissuade you from this post. I know that Econ Major’s coming out of BYU fly into hysterics at the teachings of Ezra Taft Benson describing the economic realities that are occurring right now.
You ask how China can cripple our economy? Here is some good fodder for those who delight in the words of prophets, dead or living (for when Benson was living there were throngs who muttered against him under their breath).
First though, perhaps a tid bit from President Hinckley.
In 1997 Gordon B. Hinckley stated:
It burdens us with taxes? What is he saying? No relief? Do we listen and understand what is being said? We seek to “understand things as they really are” yet how many have taken and even comprehend what this Prophet stated in that paragraph? The National debt he says “burdens us with taxes”? Why don’t they teach this stuff in School? In school they make such government spending sound as if though it’s the very basis of prosperity, wherein the government they propagandize can “spend us out of recession” and “create government jobs.” Yes, this unbridled voracious government appetite to spend indeed is a monstrous burden, imposing upon us taxes, “from which there is little or no relief.”
Notice that in August 2005 This Great Prophet paralleled the Book of Mormon to our day and time telling us “it is as current as the morning newspaper and much more definitive, inspired, and inspiring concerning the solutions of those problems. He stated:
We live in a time when so called “conservatives” are behind this spending, the Bush Administration spends 2 Times (non military) what the Clinton Administration did. Let us “awake and arise” discerning the “scheming leaders” of our day and knowing the “solutions” we have before us as put forth by a Book more Timely than the morning Newspaper, indeed the very instrument that God designed to “sweep the earth as with a flood to gather out his elect.” And even more important than that great record, A living Prophet of God, for which I’m deeply grateful. There is no voice upon this earth that I hear which carries greater comfort and reassurance than the Voice of God’s Living Prophet, which now is the Great Gordon B. Hinckley.
Now From Ezra Taft Benson, for those seeking enlightening (Sam, you of course can avoid reading this, as I have no credibility with you, despite neither you nor Dan have addressed hardly a thing spoken of in these posts of mine).
This surely gives some sampling of what is at risk now with China. They indeed can and will destroy our economy, and the globalists such as Rockefeller will continue to boast of their efforts and achievements to this end.
Shaun,
I need some hard evidence. Not discounting what President Benson, or President Hinckley said. I need hard evidence. Show me how much US dollars does China have. Compare it with what other foreign entities have. Let’s see the hard evidence. Your quote of Benson out of his book “An Enemy Within” is once again out of context. Show me your evidence now. In other words, instead of “appealing to authority”, which is a logical fallacy, show me with real evidence that China can indeed “cripple our economy” with one swift blow.
I was involved in a conversation over the past weekend about Mitt Romney, and we came to an interesting observation: What IF Romney were to be elected, could this bring the Church into a dangerous position? Perhaps even a situation which would bring ridicule and persecution upon the Church, while Satan attempts to throw the Church into the bad publicity of the media?
Shaun,
Thanks for the long quote from Ezra Taft Benson about the economy and our national debt to foreign countries. While I had no kind of proof for Dan’s questioning, only just my personal feelings on the subject, it is reassuring to me that my thoughts and beliefs on the question are similarly expressed by a Prophet (whether he said it as his own persornal opinion, or through the guidance of the HG matters not to me).
Dan,
If authority of prophets is a logical fallacy, then you can just write me off and the prophets, the which I choose to study and seek to gain greater knowledge from than can be had from the propagandists seemingly everywhere else in almost all instances.
Hard Evidence? Heavens. Pick up any newspaper today. Perhaps I’m not understanding you, It would seem evidence is everywhere, not even denied even in the mainstream.
“Out of Context?”
And please, put Benson’s words in context for me. Perhaps it might be finagled so as to rationalize it away and minimize it into not making any sense or application for us today, seduce us into an “all is well in zion” scenario.
I recall years back a Gospel Doctrine teacher skipping Ether 8, as it was “controversial” and we needed not to concern ourselves with it in that setting. I don’t know that he stated it was “out of context” to modern times, but certainly he might as well have.
Ezra Taft Benson, in the First Presidency Christmas Devotional of 1986 spoke to our understanding of such as that teacher:
It would seem to me that quoting prophets as being part of a “fallacy” in argument, by “Citing authority” certainly have been propagandized by the learning of men, and reduced to understanding because of their “learning.”
You bet I appeal to authority, Prophets, Seers and Revelators have authority to speak of things as they “really are” and as they “really will be” despite Sam’s inane commentary to the contrary.
Sam discounting my posts without addressing the substance of them is a cheap escape. He didn’t respond to Woodrow Wilson’s comment on having “unwittingly ruined my country” nor David Rockefeller’s boasting of “conspiring” against the best interests of the United States as well as being part of a “secret cabal” working toward a “new world.”
I’m Sure at BYU such teachings are never heard. Here is a man, one of the most influential in the world, boasting of “conspiring” to bring the United States into a “New World” and the sell out souls of Higher Education won’t touch it.
Dr. Skousen Spoke of David Rockefeller as being the only man of which he was aware who would walk into any US embassy worldwide unannounced. Yet look at his treason. Perhaps quoting Rockefeller, from his own Autobiography, “Memoirs,” is a logical fallacy, as it appeals to the authority of Rockefeller’s very own words?
Dan,
As apparently the words of a Prophet are not “hard evidence” in your mind, see this chart. Please stop making accusations that prophetic statements with which you disagree are “out of context”. Prophets speak for our day, about our day, and about what is to come. It is just like President Hinckley said about the Book of Mormon:
But scriptures are “out of context” for you concerning current events, I’m guessing, right? You would seek after the newspaper, when we have a Prophet of God tell us that scripture is more truthful and relevant. I’ll stand by the words of the Prophet any day.
Kelly wrote:
If Romney is embraced and anointed by the establishment to get the nomination and win, it will be only for evil purposes, I believe. He will be used up, spit out by the globalists after being the man who is holding the bag when they unleash economic devastation upon us and other things, after which the media will turn the multitudes of the nations against the covenant people of the lamb.
If Romney is chosen, mark it down as the time when persecution as we’ve never known it will be unleashed against us.
Dan,
I will honestly take a different stance on this blog, I think your comments have been influencial to stimulate thought and discussion. I have not taken personal offense. I’m sure that if you were my neighbor, we would find much in common, and we possibly would be friends. Your comment that you were in a bishopric was NOT offensive to me either, in fact, it helped me to see you as a real person (son of God). Disagreement can be healthy, and I am not one to take offense. But I am also not hesitant to state my personal feeling, especially in an anonymous atmosphere like a blog. You do come across as somewhat arrogant, whether intended or not (perhaps this is why you have got others on your wrong side).
Connor,
Thank you! Finally, hard evidence! Now, upon seeing the numbers, I don’t feel so scared about China’s supposed “grip” on American currency. Were Japan to do something crazy, then I’d be concerned. They own more than twice as much American currency than China, yet I wonder, why are there no warnings about Japan….
And yes, President Benson’s comments are out of context. His warnings were about the doom of Communism. I like what Bruce R. McConkie said once about the discrepancy between what they said before the revelation regarding blacks and the priesthood and post-revelation:
Things change, events change, and thusly so do what the prophets warn us about. I’m saying that it’s alright for you guys to go on believing in what J. Reuben Clark said. But if challenged for verification, back up your beliefs with facts on the ground. Don’t, instead, smear the one who challenges you as a non-believer who tries to tear down your belief. If you cannot back your views with facts on the ground, then it will be hard for you to convince many of an impending doom. The scriptures tell us there will be plenty of signs. I see them all around me. I understand what the prophets are warning about. And it isn’t China, nor the media.
We won the battle against communism. That doesn’t mean there aren’t anymore bad guys out there. There certainly are. But to use quotes from prophets who warned us against communism to fight against this new enemy does us a disservice. To find out who our enemy is today, we have to ask our prophets today what guidance they wish to give us. To this point, the enemy they talk about over and over and over is hate and pornography. Those are our enemies.
Kelly,
Thank you for the kind words. No, the arrogance is not intentional. It is a weakness of mine. Hard to work through, I tell you! especially in an anonymous setting.
I’ve also found this discussion stimulating. As I said earlier, debates with those I disagree with helps keep me and my beliefs grounded.
Dan,
One might easily argue that your example of the revelation on blacks and the priesthood is “out of context”. In this example, new revelation has been given that supercedes and thus nullifies previous statements to the contrary.
I ask you, has any prophetic revelation or statement been given that likewise nullifies what we has been previously said on the subject we’ve been discussing?
Dan
Once again you have extracted a small portion of the substance of the comments rendered and chosen to ignore the facts. I stated “Dan and OTHERS.” If that does not apply wholly to you, I would suggest you ignore it. If there is anything otherwise which would apply to you than I stand by my assertions. If nothing applies to you, I would suggest you ignore everything and move on with your life. As for your possibly being “offended,” I cannot offer you any advice there, but Elder Bednar probably could if you would consider his words in the Ensign, Nov 2008, 89. I recall others, perhaps even Jesus Christ, who have made comments about being offended, but you probably have a much greater ability to recall them than do I. Personally, I have yet to find anyone able to offend me so perhaps I am simply immune to the possibility. I am also not foolish enough to fall for the “political correctness” mentality of the left, and other New World Order Socialists.
If you would go back to the beginning of your last remarks keeping in mind that you took what I said, not only out of context, but quite personally, I might add, your whole statement is then left without any relevance whatsoever.
Alas, with all due respect to you, and your view of the world, you have not challenged me in any way since nothing you have offered thus far has met with my approval, and your continual assertions to the contrary are no longer worthy of my consideration.
You will probably find a reason to continue this farce, and I will likely accommodate you if you wish, but do not expect me to give you an audience open to persuasion as I cannot find you to be a credible teacher.
Dan
You keep clamoring for evidence, more evidence. Your words to Shaun were so loud I could hear you pounding the table. Are you aware that it sounds as if you are seeking signs? Are you aware of what the sign seekers receive?
“It is one thing to be temporally foolish, but, quite another to be an eternal fool.” (These are my words originally, and they are repeated occassionally in other commentary.) If the shoe does not fit than do not wear it.
Michael,
I was waiting for someone to finally bring it up. I figured that upon asking to “prove” words of spiritual leaders, followers of those spiritual leaders would inevitably bring this point up. Again this shows the degradation of a political debate when tied so closely to one’s religion.
The reason I ask for evidence is fairly straight forward and simple. If the evidence on the ground backs up the assertion made by you, then you are correct. If it doesn’t, then you’ve got problems. Because if it doesn’t then it means you and J. Reuben Clark was wrong. You are afraid of that happening, of J. Reuben Clark actually being wrong about politics. See, this is why Elder McConkie’s words are so important. He argued his beliefs, and with much gusto, based on the limited knowledge he had at the time. Upon new light, he argued differently. The reason I ask for the facts on the ground is that, yes, indeed, spiritual men can, have, and will be wrong when it comes to their interpretation of life and the world around them. I cannot rest just on their testimony alone. I pray about their words, but I also dig up my own information. I study everything around me, including what President Benson writes (I have read An Enemy Within).
With the knowledge of both facts on the ground, and spiritual (not prophetic) counsel, I am indeed in great shape. I have knowledge for myself. This is what Joseph Smith taught. That we would all gain the knowledge of prophets, that we would all know what they know. That we are all entitled to revelation regarding things of this world. And in regards to the quotes from J. Reuben Clark and President Benson, yes, they are out of date. They were warning us of an enemy we defeated. It is time to move on. Can you do so?
”
Arrogance? hmmmm, definitely is in the eye of the beholder.
McKee is, then, teaching, not discussing. According to his interpretations of the prophets and little else.
I ‘interpret’ his post here:
to mean that challenging the his paradigm and it’s interpretation of other’s words, means that I am pulling him away from the Gospel. So be it. I have an opinion,
Shaun doesn’t get offended, in his good natured banter he discredits my church sponsored, corrupt education at BYU:
Thus pitting ETB from 25 years ago against BYU school of economics in the present. (Irony screams forth)
The very, very simple answer to whether China could hurt us economically is:
Of course they could. 1)they could by Euros instead of dollars; 2) They could refuse to trade with us;
But they’d just as soon shoot themselves in the head.
But the relevant question isn’t whether they could hurt us, or if we could hurt them more; The real question is : “Woudn’t it be cheaper and quicker for the Chinese to commit suicide by launching a nuke?”
China can’t call in its debts because our buying of Walmart toys, car parts, computer parts, computer design and thier best engineers is what feeds them. If Americans don’t have cash the Chinese don’t have customers. As Winterton pointed out, we buy a whole lot of thier stuff. No buyers, no money, no jobs, no jobs =big problem in a country of 1.4 billion. (One may make the obtuse point that they have money from the collected debts, to which I reply the obvious, we couldn’t pay them off all at once…and when our economy goes into recession from our efforts…we have even less and less)
Russia and Europe don’t have the buying power we do. They don’t have the strenghthened economic ties to China that we do. If we hurt, China hurts. If China hurts, we hurt. This is the reality of globalization. If China holds all of our dollars…doesn’t it stand to reason that the last thing they want to do is hinder our ability to pay those dollars back? An immediate call-in (which is also impossible because they mostly hold bonds which have contractual dates for each kind, which means they can’t get their money until the security or bond says so…)
It is implicit that thier holding of so much of our currency means that they are more confident in our economy than any other. It also means that when our currency tanks, Thier instutions which suffer defaults on loans tank with them and they don’t meet thier debts and thier system falls apart.
China’s investment in the US is the greatest deterrent against them ever chancing an open conflict. It would be akin to shooting your best customer, knowing you won’t kill him ,and hoping that when he shoots back he misses.
China isn’t really a threat, thier economic interests are married to ours, moreso, I’d argue, than the EU.
As for their ‘godless’ communism, I think Dan nailed it on the head. China is in uncharted waters.
China is in the midst of an interesting experiment that attempts to marry 2000 years of evolving communal beliefs (which intermittently eerily resembled that anti-capitalist altruism called the law of consecration) that, in spite of no prophetic prediction (sorry), may result in an intriguing arrangement of a capitalist economy and communist values and make them (gasp!) happy neo-communists with a nimble capitalist system!
It’s a long shot…but possible.
Shaun, your analogy between a demand for evidence and a demand for miraculous sign reeks of the type of knee-jerk interpretation you’ve used to support your gosh-forsakenly long sermons this whole time.
You do not have the authority, nor the keys, to impose your interpretations of dead men’s words upon me. You don’t even have the moral right to interpret them outside of your home unless supported by church manual.
Nor do I need you to radically reinterpret the meanings of live men who would speak authoritatively and plainly to the subject directly if they meant to.
If you want to discuss, use facts. If you want to surmise, use reason based upon fact. Don’t Korihor the sacred texts to fit your pretentious rambling…
:::cough:::
threadjack
:::cough:::
Gentlemen, if you wish to discuss the issue of foreign debt with regards to China and other nations, please do so here. As this post has stagnated into nothing more than banter between those of differing opinions, I’d encourage us to bring it to a close and move on. 🙂
Apologies Connor. I’m way off topic and, in retrospect probably too personal and tit for tat. Apologies McKee.
To All
It has been fun, but my blood pressure medication will only keep me somewhat secure, and these past few days have been charting new territory on my readings. Besides, I’ll be 60 in 10 days, and I would like to think that I will see 62 so I am able to substantiate with irrefutable evidence that my Social Security will no longer be available due to the collapse of the fiat currency brought to us by the Jekyll Island crew, and their brainchild we affectionately refer to as the Federal Reserve.
Oh, and by the way, I will move on too, but I think I’ll do so by continuing to read “Inspired Prophetic Warnings” by Duane S. Crowther. After all of this expended energy, I haven’t changed my position at all, and am even more convinced that I am on the right track, and must warn my neighbors.
As the post closes, I would like to share the two posts that brought me the most laughter.
The first was Connor’s response to Dan’s congratulations, all in good humor. Dan stated:
oh and congratulations, Connor, on getting what seems your first post with over 100 comments. 🙂
Connor’s reply:
I owe it all to your stubbornness to debate the issue and prove a point. 😉
The other post that made me laugh was this by Michael L. McKee:
Dan
I had considered responding to your query about my comments concerning the Washington, D.C. gathering. However, I chose to avail myself of the opportunity to take the advice of Shaun’s suggestion to read the remarks made by Elder Packer once again. I am grateful to Shaun for providing me with a thoroughly uplifting opportunity. Comparatively speaking, I was able to better understand what is meant by “On the Shoulders of Giants.” I now have an even greater testimony of the reasons why I have revered the names of Ezra Taft Benson, J. Reuben Clark, and W. Cleon Skousen. I am also reminded of the wisdom displayed in the following:
“A young university student of political science once spoke to Elder Lee about the student’s vigorous disagreement with President Clark’s lecture “Our Dwindling Sovereignty” at the University of Utah. Elder Lee’s response was, “Yes, I suppose it would be difficult for a pygmy to get the viewpoint of a giant. When I go to hear world authority…, I go to learn and not to criticize.”
With those profound final words uttered by President Lee, I could add nothing further to this conversation.
The laughs have been good, even with Sam attributing comments to me that I never made, and fiscal policy spelled out by Ezra Taft Benson is some how maintained as being out of context by Dan because “communism fell” which the fiscal policies spelled out have no bearing on that matter, as they are internal and obviously more relevant today than ever before—even with Gordon B. Hinckley warning of “a portent of stormy weather ahead to which we had better give heed.” Surely, this was out of context. Dan???? Or a falacy of logic? Sam????
Ciao
But Ron Paul won’t win… 🙂
Hi, Michael.
Sorry to drop off the thread. I won’t attempt an answer to your question here, but the short answer: Science done it.
Details are on my blog, if you’d like to read more: Good Reason, especially the ‘Deconversion Stories’ series.
I’d welcome your comments. As for all of you.
Dan,
You said that according to warnings from our current prophet our enemies today are hate and pornography. I agree with you that these definitely are two areas of major concern and I wonder (since the Book of Mormon warns us heavily about secret combinations in the last days) if you think hate and pornography are connected to secret combinations and if so, how? How would the problems of hate and pornography, by themselves, necessitate a years supply of food and getting out of debt? You obviously don’t believe the secret combinations have given up on their desire to take control of governments (as they did so frequently in the BOM) and only focus on morality issues, do you? If not, what threats do you see coming from the “government” arena? Why can’t the words of President Benson and others about communism apply to our current situation according to the principles behind the names of communism/socialism? I don’t think their comments are irrelevant today just because we don’t see a direct threat of communist takeover anymore. Aren’t Satan’s plans usually counterfeits of God’s programs? For example, God wants us to experience freedom and choice… Satan wants to force mankind. Whether this force is done through communism, socialism, or any other name, it doesn’t matter. I think we need to recognize the actual principles used by communism and fight against those. Shouldn’t we make sure similar tactics are not being carried out some other way in our day, rather than completely dismissing their warnings since “the West won the Cold War” and “communism died”? You said that using those old quotes to fight a new enemy does us a disservice. I would only agree if we limit their application to a narrow view of pre-1990 communism. If we understand the actual principles being warned against and fight them wherever we find them, the same quotes can help us from being deceived. Yes, Satan changes his tactics from time to time, but the principles he espouses do not change and we need all the help we can get to recognize them today.
Carissa,
I have one word for the logic of your post – – profound. I like your reasoning.
It looks like I’m getting into this coversation late in the game and, honestly, I’m not going to read 166 posts to catch up. I read the first 10 or so and just want to endorse Ron Paul over Mitt Romney. Anyone who is still playing the Republican vs Democrat game hasn’t woken up yet. It is my humble opinion that Romney is playing that game. As important as abortion, taxes, medicare, etc. are, these topics are simply distractors from the much more SERIOUS and very scary reality. We must prioritize. The REAL ID Act, considered the precursor to us all getting chipped, has been signed into law and is slated to be implemented in May of 2008! Habeus corpus has not only been suspended but ELIMINATED by CONGRESS! Then, the the problem that trumps all others, the United States is about to be consumed by the NORTH AMERICAN UNION. The very sovereignty of our nation is planned to be disolved in 2010!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kjsy2Z3kdI
If you haven’t been following the story of the North American Union, you are seriously loosing out. Everyone must see this video and others like it.
We can’t be suckered into voting for a quasi-Mormon just because he’s a Mormon when our CONSTITUTION is about to homogenized with Mexico and Canada’s.
RON PAUL for 2008!
I just had to add this link about Habeas Corpus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em00K2TRMvc
I agree Connor and Daniel, I plan to support Ron Paul in any way that I can.
I will not vote for Mitt Romney cause when I worked for the 2002
winter olympics in salt lake he fed us dog food, the food during
the olympics was horrible, and since he headed up the event,
I hold him responsible. jonn faircrest
I haven’t yed heard Mitt Romney’s reaction to Ron Paul’s comments about Iraq during the South Carolina debates, but this is what I learned about Rudy Giuliani:
He is unfit to be president if he refuses to recognize the unavoidable cause/effect relationship America has with the world through it’s unconstitutional interventionist actions over the last century. Instead he claims he has never heard something so absurd! Wow, surely this “security expert” has read the 9-11 Commission Report, Osama Bin Laden’s 1996 fatwa, and CIA opinions.
There are, of course, ideological reasons why these radical muslims hate us, as well, but I believe they would not be stirred up the way they are were it not for the things we have done in their land. Otherwise, why is this a “new” problem for us? Why is their cause more widespread and receiving more support around the world than ever? Why wasn’t this happening to us before we interfered with Middle Eastern politics (beginning with the Shah of Iran incident in the 50’s)?
Ron never justified the terrorists’ actions by bringing up these facts. The victims of 9-11 were innocent civilians and did not deserve to die. We cannot, however, blindly refuse to see the lessons history provides if we want to prevent being attacked again. Our next president needs to understand this. That is why my vote will now be for Ron Paul. As a military wife, I want my husband’s service for his country to be used wisely and cautiously by a president who understands what is truly going on in the world and what America’s role should be.
Does anyone know of Mitt’s reaction to Ron Paul’s comments? I know he wanted a rubuttal and I’d be very curious to hear what he has to say.
Mitt Romney in the debate alledgedly stated he is in favor of extreme interrogation techniques (torture) and wants to double the size of Guantanamo.
I’ll bet these two opinions of his are really damaging the reputation of the Church among others in the World Community.
I don’t think he represents Latter-Day Saints who live outside of the USA, or even outside of Utah!
For those who watched the recent Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, I hope you caught onto the fact that Mitt Romney renounced mormonism.
Doubling Guantanamo, supporting and sanctioning torture, and ripping Habeas Corpus to shred.. Romney would simply be anohter Bush-esque neoconservative. He is no friend of the Constitution.
Connor
I could not connect to the comments in which you have indicated that Mitt Romney “renounced Mormonism.” I would really like to hear those remarks verbatim.
I have a very real fear that many members of the Church are being drawn into something which will not, in the end, be a pleasant experience. It is beginning to sound very much like we are being divided politically which could portend a division within the Church. This is precisely the kind of tactics in which the adversary is masterful. I pray I am wrong in my assertions, but feel I am not.
I could not connect to the comments in which you have indicated that Mitt Romney “renounced Mormonism.”
The article I linked to explains what they mean with this accusation. Basically, Romney has shown himself to be an enemy of the Constitution, and enemy of liberty, and an enemy of the rule of law.
Michael, you write: “I have a very real fear that many members of the Church are being drawn into something which will not, in the end, be a pleasant experience. It is beginning to sound very much like we are being divided politically which could portend a division within the Church. This is precisely the kind of tactics in which the adversary is masterful. ”
I agree totally. I think that was the intent of the White House when Cheney invited himself to speak at BYU. Some (including myself) have speculated his visit was to grease the skids for Romney to become the repub candidate and to simultaneously (falsely) discredit Steven Jones.
Romney and the rest of the Sicko Constitution Shredders on Stage the other night should have repulsed the majority of Republicans. The cherry picked Fox Neocon audience full of warmonger torture cheerleaders are what are destroying the US.
As Ezra Taft Benson stated:
“If America is destroyed, it may be by Americans who salute the flag, sing the national anthem, march in patriotic parades, cheer Fourth of July speakers – normally good Americans who fail to comprehend what is required to keep our country strong and free – Americans who have been lulled away into a false security.” (April 1968, General Conference Report)
Foolish are the LDS people who will stick with Romney simply because he “professes” Mormonism. Satan too would profess Mormonism, would he be able to get away with it.
Ezra Taft Benson spoke of the importance of unity, but we should not be united for unities sake only, we must be united in truth— not in neoconservative false educational and political idealogies and socialist agenda’s put out by Romney and the forked, serpentine tongued Republican socialists who “profess” to be LDS.
Connor
Would you direct me to a blog site similar to yours where part of the rant of the participants might include the complicity on the part of the Democrats. Apparently those of us misguided former Republicans have single-handedly brought us to the awful situation currently upon us.
What is the general consensus concerning Senator Harry Reid? Has he committed treason? Is he a good Latter-day Saint? Has the death toll of people closely associated with the Clintons exceeded 42? Which party has brought us closer to our current awful situation over the past 60 plus years? Which party is currently working the hardest to silence us, disarm us, and otherwise control us? Which party is working hand-in-hand with the Bush Administration to eliminate our borders, language and culture? Is the Democratic Party currently delivering on their promise to change the landscape?
With all due respect, I think we need to hear from some of the regulars on just how they feel about some of these questions.
Michael,
The cursed Democrats and Republicans both are constitution destroyers. They are very much connected. “The Naked Capitalist” is a near book review of the nearly 1,400 page book written by Carol Quigley, History professor at Georgetown, Bill Clinton’s Mentor, his book being “Tragedy and Hope.” That book was authored for the Establishment, as they had Dr. Quickley write it for them, giving him access to their private writings and papers. The book was not intended by them to get out to the common folk, and that is a whole story of great interest.
A great and valuable thing to note by Quigley is that the establishment gadianton’s get people stuck in what is a “controlled opposition” paradigm of “right vs. left” and “liberal vs. Conservative.” They keep people caught in phony squables between the parties which truly operate as one, but the sheeple are placated come each election time, as one party goes out, and the other installed, yet both parties in reality follow the essential basic policies and unite to defend the secret combinations of which they are both devoted.
The Bush’s vacation with the Bin Ladens and the Clinton’s is what Alex Jones asserts. I do know after 911 the weaping FBI agent said on camera “all I can say is that the Bush’s vaccation with the Bin Ladens.” Alex points out that you can add the Clinton’s to that. Bush Sr. was head of the CIA and little boy Clinton was one of his good CIA guys doing subversive work in England, later being head of major Bush/Clinton drug running into Mena Arkansas. The Clinton Cronicles goes into the Clinton murders there, and you certainly are aware of this as you cite the 42 number of murders of the Clintons.
Yes, they both suck rocks, both traitors,
Michael, Shaun,
This is the reason I’d like to see a “Ron Paul” that doesn’t profess to be a member of the Republican Party. Both major parties are simply part of the Hegelian Dialectic scheme being foisted on normally ignorant Americans.
The what?
You should just google it.
I respect your right to voice your opinion, and I skimmed your blog. You really have no idea what you are talking about when it come to my Uncle, Mitt Romney. Seriously…no clue. You made a lot of baseless attacks against him, just as the mainstream liberal media who have no clue. It upsets me, because I have known him all my life. I know who he is. I know SO many things about him that you have no idea about. For these reasons and many more, your statements are personal.
It seems you are basing your opinion on the opinions of others. Why not get it from the source? Just as the analogy we use about the church…if you have a problem with your eyes, don’t go to a foot doctor.
Mitt is NOT a flip flopper, nor has he ever. He has changed his views yes. But never from A to B and BACK to A. Thus…not a flip flopper. A changer. You, nor anyone, can say they have never realized they were wrong about something. Therefore, you imply that when someone knows they are wrong, they should just keep silent, and NOT change. That’s awful. It’s awful because when people actually DO change, they are labeled as “flip-floppers”. Let the issue go. Every time I hear people ask that I wonder why they haven’t just looked at what he’s already said hundreds of times about it.
Furthermore, the comment that Mitt really wants to be President, or is seeking it just shows me even more how while you think you’ve got him figured out, you have no clue. I could easily keep going and knock all your baseless attacks against Mitt to the floor, but I’ll finish by saying I think it would be best for you to really analyze the situations further before commenting. And get your info from the source.
You made a lot of baseless attacks against him…
Such as? If you think any of my assertions are in error, please feel free to rebut them. I read the news, observe his political record, watch his flip flops, and interpret them to be indicative of his intentions and policies. If you feel I’m wrong, please tell me how.
It seems you are basing your opinion on the opinions of others. Why not get it from the source?
I rarely, if ever, base my opinions on the opinions of others. I have read Mitt’s statements, observed his policies and programs, watched his announcements and publicity, etc. I’ve done my homework, Jacob. Again, if you feel something I’ve said to be wrong, please tell me what it is.
I think a relative would the the LEAST qualified to judge a presidential candidate. That would be like Shaha Riza judging the ethics of Paul Wolfowitz. Or Barbara Bush saying that George really doesn’t evade answering questions at home.
I don’t mind a candidate changes his view from “wrong to right” but his philosophy of what government should do should never divert from what the constitution permits. I was disappointed to hear Mitt tell us (during the last debate) how he changed his view from getting the federal government out of education, to now supporting its involvement.
“Once upon a time I said I wanted to eliminate the department of education, that was my position when I ran for senate in 1994, that’s very popular with the base. As I’ve been a governor and seen the impact that the federal government can have holding down the interest of the teacher’s unions, and instead put in the interests of the kids, the parents, and the teachers first, I see that the department of education can actually make a difference, so I supported No Child Left Behind, I still do. I know there are a lot in my party that don’t like it but I like testing in our schools. I think it allows us to get better schools, better teachers, allows us to let our kids have the kind of hope that they ought to have. I think, by the way, that the civil rights issue of our time is not what’s going on on our stage right here, but what’s going on in the schools in the inner cities of America because the kids are not getting the education they need for the jobs of tomorrow. And so I’m very proud of the position I’ve taken…”
He rationalizes that since the federal government can make a difference, he supports its involvment. Yet at the same time he acknowledges that the “kids are not getting the education they need”. Maybe that too was a difference that the federal government helped to make by involving itself with the schools.
Anyone can go on and on about the good effects (or bad) that have resulted from government involvement in social security, medicaid, homeland security, education, or any number of other programs. This should not deter us from standing by the constitution. If the government has no constitutional authority to be involved, it should not be involved — regardless of the perceived benefits! I personally believe that many of the problems in our schools that he wants to fix, were created by the federal government’s involvement in the first place.
After hearing him say this, I was wondering what other unconstitutional ideas or programs he would support if he found that they were effective or could make a difference in some way. Ron Paul, on the other hand, is immovable in his determination to stand by the constitution. Even 9-11 did not sway his resolve, but made it stronger. He did not give in to supprting the Patriot Act, rationalizing that it could make a difference. He held fast to the constitution. There are other ways, constitutional ways, to fix the problems America has. I’m afraid that, although he is a good man with good intentions, Mitt will not hold fast to the constitution the way Ron Paul has proven he will.
I know about the Hegelian dialectic process. I do not think it means what you think it means.
And I would love to see someone try ‘foisting’ one sometime. That would be interesting. Nothing like a good ol’ Hegelian foist on a hot day.
Sheesh.
Wow — are Romney’s relatives going from blog to blog trying to dispel error?
Actually this could be a good strategy for Romney. He probably has a lot of nephews. They could have some serious coverage.
Fontor, I must understand Hegel’s concept differently than you. I think the push-pull of the two main parties is nothing more than a way to lead the U.S. to a N.W.O.
From what I remember, the process starts out with a thesis, which is sort of like a worldview in your head. This thesis gets challenged by an antithesis when something happens that your thesis can’t account for. Then you work it all out, thesis and antithesis together, into a synthesis, or a new view. This synthesis becomes your new thesis, and on it goes over and over again, upwards and onwards.
It’s not really intended to be sinister.
I call new Ron Paul thread.
Connor,
I found your site through the ron paul meetup group and love this post about romney. You appear to be very well read in your political views. I recently started a blog called Utahns for Ron Paul and am going to link to your blog in my blog roll. If you are interested in doing an occasional article on my blog I’m all for it. It looks like you already have a good readership here but a lot of this content would be perfect for my new blog. Let me know what you think.
http://utahronpaul.blogspot.com
-Micah
i agree. I am also Mormon and I don’t support Romney – I have different reasons – more religious ones – for example – a true Latter day Saint that practices free agency doesn’t push American policies on the rest of the world – all that warmongering is Satan’s plan… and I think a true Latter day Saint should promote peace… and peace is Patriotic. Ron Paul is the only candidate in either party that is a true man of peace and that’s what I really like. He’s a non-interventionist and that’s the best kind of president there can be.
We were the originators of the UN, by the way.
Umm…no. The architects of the U.N. were members of the globalist elite at the time, with the father of the U.N. being none other than Alger Hiss, a convicted communist spy.
all that warmongering is Satan’s plan… and I think a true Latter day Saint should promote peace…
Considering we teach this in our highest places of worship, I would say this is well advise.
Let me quote Mitt from one of the debates: I would double the size of Guantonimo
Also said he would not rule out a pre-emptive nuke on Iran.
This is not the man we need leading this country.
Mitt is NOT a flip flopper, nor has he ever. He has changed his views yes. But never from A to B and BACK to A. Thus…not a flip flopper. A changer. You, nor anyone, can say they have never realized they were wrong about something. Therefore, you imply that when someone knows they are wrong, they should just keep silent, and NOT change. That’s awful. It’s awful because when people actually DO change, they are labeled as “flip-floppers”. Let the issue go.
If Mitt was 20-40 and was not seeking the office of President, I’d be willing to cut him some slack on these fundamental changes in world view, but I am a little suspicious about these changes so close to his white house bid. Changing deffinately qualifies you to be recognized as a better person, but it does not qualify you to hold the most powerful position on Earth. There are many men who have had consistent views on these important matter who are far more qulified…Ron Paul included among them.
“If America is destroyed, it may be by Americans who salute the flag, sing the national anthem, march in patriotic parades, cheer Fourth of July speakers – normally good Americans who fail to comprehend what is required to keep our country strong and free – Americans who have been lulled away into a false security.”
Mitt Romney is one of these Americans…he is a Republican schill. Compare what is spoken of by benson in his talk entitled “The Proper Role” of government with what Mitt has done in office. There are really no simularities in thinking, so I am going to defer to Benson on this one…as well as Mckay.
Michael Conder,
Um, no. You may not like it, but it was America that created the UN. Deal with it dude.
Dan,
It was from America that the UN was founded, but by Communists. Ezra Taft Benson, J. Reuben Clark Jr., Dr. W. Cleon Skousen and a hundred honest historians clearly point this out as historical fact.
Alger Hiss was one of vast throngs of communist traitors who had infiltrated the US government. Senator McCarthy had way understated the number of communists in the State Department, and the media and smear campaign today remains relentless, despite his being vindicated—even admittedly so—by many of his “black listed” enemies.
I hope you deal with it and go read up on the subject matter. None Dare Call It Conspiracy recommended for reading by Ezra Taft Benson in General Conference is a good starting point. It has been on-line for free, or found newly printed or used last I checked.
For a good listen, check out W. Cleon Skousen speak to this issue as well as Ezra Taft Benson on the Download Page of AwakeAndArise.org
Shaun,
I began reading “None Dare Call it Conspiracy” and had to stop just a few paragraphs in, at the following two:
So many problems here. Mr. Allen’s bogeymen are billionaires? Let’s start from the top, shall we?
Mr. Allen begins with a theoretical possibility, instead of actual facts. Sure, it is theoretically possible for billionaires to be super-bad guys. This has been played in fictional stories over and over. It is also theoretically possible to do many things that in actual reality don’t really happen. I understand he will later get to his point, drawing up examples of this and that…
but really, why should I even try? You’re fully converted, as is Connor. I really should just stop visiting this site, honestly. There’s no point.
Dan,
So because this book begins with a theoretical possibility that is all too obvious, there is no point in continuing? You sound like a real truth seeker.
A former prophet (yes, I know he was only an apostle at the time) recommends in general conference that everyone read this book and you won’t even give it a chance? You’re not even curious about getting to the facts and the evidence you know will be presented? Sounds to me like you are afraid of something. Might you have to change some of your views or eat some crow? Come on, seek out truth for TRUTH’S sake. Let the facts speak for themselves and debate them if you want but don’t avoid them. This is a good book from a source we can trust!
(I’m sorry if I sound like a Jerk, but this is how I feel after reading your post)
Oh why am I falling to the temptation to continue this….
Carissa,
the theoretical possibility Mr. Allen raises is not actually “all too obvious.” Here is Mr. Allen’s definition of “Communism.”
Here’s the problem. Mr. Allen may be right that there is a “global conspiracy” among the world’s rich to conquer the world, but why exactly call it communism? He even states that these men are not in any way following the principles espoused by Karl Marx, nor even by Lenin. So just what exactly is the connection to Communism? It seems the only real connection is the fear that stems from the label “communist.” If someone or something is “communist” it loses certain credibility, because hey only bad guys are “communist.” Much like calling anyone today a Nazi fascist. No one would really want that.
So right off the bat, Mr. Allen’s definition is inherently flawed to begin with. He even states it himself:
So what then does any of his thesis have to do with communism? Because of bad labeling, you’ll never actually get to the facts; your view will continually be distorted by preconceptions about the words themselves. If the real bad guys in this world are rich powerful men bent on global conquest, then name them so.
In fact, Mr. Allen has so many problems with his definition that he changes it just mere paragraphs later:
So is a Communist a rich man bent on global conquest, or an insider conspirator? If you call someone who is an “insider conspirator” a Communist, does that mean that he is exclusively a rich powerful man bent on global conquest?
Further problems are Mr. Allen’s continual derision of anything “liberal.” The problem with this, and this is where I believe President Benson’s own political views are flawed is that liberalism is not the enemy. Let me quote you Elder Dallin H. Oaks, from 1987 (while President Benson was still prophet, I might add):
Is Elder Oaks speaking heresy here? He finds wisdom in liberalism, the very same liberalism that is at the heart of the derision of Mr. Allen, whom President Benson adored.
Now, this next paragraph that I would like to share from Mr. Allen is truly puzzling, especially when cast in light with certain scripture. Here is Mr. Allen:
So, according to Mr. Allen, the real problem is the higher education one gets the more Communist one becomes. Didn’t the Lord state in D&C 93: “The Glory of God is Intelligence?” Doesn’t our prophet today state that we must get the best education we can get of both the things of this world and the gospel of Jesus Christ? How can the prophet of the Lord counsel the members of the church to get their education from the same institutions that Mr. Allen derides as the way station on your way to becoming a Communist?
But wait there’s more:
So, according to Mr. Allen, the government, even at the local level is all socialized (and thusly Communist), and our opposition is futile. But wait, hasn’t our prophet counseled us to get involved in politics? Has not our prophet stated that we should go run for mayor, for governor, for president. Be involved, he says. If we are involved, are we not actively participating in Mr. Allen’s Communism?
Now it gets even weirder. Earlier Mr. Allen said that his definition of Communism had nothing to do with Marx’s definition. Yet he now quotes Marx to support his definition. Huh?
And lo! he changes his definition of Communism yet again!:
However, we come to the REAL point he is making. Ironically it is something President Benson, later in his life, warned against: Pride. But in this case, the pride of the poor looking up at the wealthy and envying their wealth. Just read Mr. Allen’s account and tell me you don’t think he’s mighty troubled by the rich and their vast funds:
Awww, poor Mr. Allen, has to pay disproportionate taxes to the rich. I’ve got a violin, I can get it out and play a sad song for him. Let’s continue:
What Mr. Allen fails to inform his readers is that America was founded by rich men who controlled all power of governance. And he seeks to go back to that system? Gee, during the Founding Fathers’ day, who could vote? Rich landowners. Could the local blacksmith vote? Nope. Not in the least. What a dope!
Huh, power-seeking billionaires, eh? I figured the Jews would soon come into his book, and here they are in the very next chapter. While the Rothschilds are typical bogeymen of conspiracy theorists on the right, they offer no proof, and neither does Mr. Allen. If Mr. Allen wishes to accuse a prominent and powerful family like the Rothschild family of wrongdoing, the burden of proof lies on Mr. Allen to provide the evidence. If he cannot, then Mr. Allen is guilty of slander.
And see, here is where Mr. Allen’s argument starts to fall apart completely. He began his thesis by claiming his book is conspiratorial fact, not conspiratorial theory. Yet when needing to provide evidence, Mr. Allen has nothing but circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence does not pass muster in a court of law, and should never pass muster when dealing with something as important as this. Where is the evidence, Mr. Allen? Where is the documentation that one Rothschild kid sent to another saying, “look I’m going to get the Germans to start a war with your French, so there!”
The rest of his book is all the same, circumstantial evidence that seems on the face of it to fit his preconceived notions. Alas, he offers no hard evidence.
One more thing, I find it funny that he quotes from Winston Churchill, as if Mr. Churchill had no connections to the bankers of England, as if Mr. Churchill was somehow immune to their control. Heh. Little does he know.
So there, I found nothing of value in Mr. Allen’s book. A conspiracy theory pretending to be conspiracy fact, but without any evidence, is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, Carissa. It is Mr. Allen who is not being truthful with you. Had he any real evidence, then I might be convinced, but everything he brings up is circumstantial at best. At worst it is slander.
and hey since we’re only using circumstantial evidence, here’s a good one.
So here’s a question for you fellow Allen conspirators, if the banks of the world are truly behind the power grabs, and truly behind the support of the Soviet Union, why would they let the Soviet Union fail?
Dan,
Perhaps as you should avoid this site, just as you suggest. If you had to stop in the read of None Dare Call It Conspiracy, then surely there isn’t much hope for those of us to “convince” you of much.
“A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”
What is one to do with the facts with you? Wall Street Bankers in Russia durring the rise of Bolshevism? Doing what? Running the money where needed. Just shortly before the Revolution in 1917 we had Trotsky being driven around New York City in Limozines. The revolution was not the “rising up of the downtrodden masses” but rather paid mercinary armies being orchestrated by Wall Street Gadianton Robbers
In None Dare Call It Conspiracy there are of course the photographs of the top “barrons” of Capitalism back slapping their Communist buddies. Pictred is Nelson Rockefeller having a jolly time with Kruschev.
I would hope you might watch some of the video clips on the followng URL, but then too realize that David Rockefeller Laughs at you, and all American’s like you who appologize for his criminality, or fail to believe it exists even when he boasts of it in his book Memoirs, published in 2002.
http://www.awakeandarise.org/article/Borders.htm
Shaun,
Photographs do nothing for me. Circumstantial evidence does nothing for me. I need hard evidence. If you do not have any, well, then you’re coming up short.
Just remember, it was circumstantial evidence that led to our debacle in Iraq.
We all need good Evidence Dan. I’m glad you want yours.
When one sees that the Big “Capitalists” pal around with their supposed antithesis and enemy, the big Marxists, one does have to scratch their head and wonder what is going on, leading to greater research.
When we have David Rockefeller boasting of treason in his own book, his own pen, then have the vast throngs of sheeple “roll their eyes” at the word “conspiracy” then it causes some of the rest of us to go bonkers at the blindness, the stupidity. Would David Rockefeller have to tell us in person of his “conspiring” against the United States? What of his boasting of being part of a “secret cabal” to bring about a “new world”—his words, not mine?
I don’t know if that is anything you take issue with, his own book, his own words, and if it sways you not at all, then you certainly must find Connor and others here frustrating to deal with, and we you.
Dr. Skousen speaks of Rockefeller on that page in the foregone post, there is a video embedded wherein Dr. Skousen speaks of David Rockefeller being the only man of which he knows who can walk into any embassy or prime ministers office unannounced. And now, all these decades later, Rockefeller and his “secret cabal” of which he boasts of being part of which have been “conspiring” against the United States laugh. They laugh at the sheeple who are so dead asleep and have no clue that they will soon be using the “Amero” as currency (also a video on that before mentioned page.)
I have not idea if you will be able to take anything serious of not these issues. If None Dare Call It Conspiracy didn’t hold you beyond a few paragaphs, then I don’t have much hope of suggesting anything to build upon that foundation. David O. McKay asked Cleon Skousen to publish the Naked Communist, and it was going to be published by the Church. The McCarthy hearings became so controversial that McKay backed away from that one and it was self published by Dr. Skousen. The year after it’s publish date, President McKay not satisfied with it’s low sales held it up at the pulpit of General Conference in 1959, asking the membership to read it. Fortunately enough did that the book went to the New York Times Best Seller List.
The following Decade, Dr. Skousen authored “The Naked Capitalist.”
You may only believe your high school and college history text books which usually don’t have jack squat for a bibliography, and are filled with nothing but distortion, grand ommissions, lies, smear campaigns upon the noble and great—nothing but propaganda. If you want to break out of that mold, and If I dare, I would suggest you get “The Creature From Jekyll Island” authored by G. Edward Griffin, a Telly Award winning documentary film maker, author, and meticulous researcher. The bibliography in that masterwork is immense. It will bring to light for you the true financiers of the Bolshevek revolution, the grand masters who planned and brought the USA into WWI and WWII and every disaster since that time.
Let us remember that Prophets, Seers, and Revelators told a different generation these things and these dear prophets were subsequently “mentally stoned” by the foolish, sleeping Elders of Israel who are about to have the ugliest wake up call in history if in fact they remain in a profound slumber. Pres. Clark in 1937 angered those worshiping at the feet of FDR in his fireside chats when Pres. Clark prophesied:
So there is my suggestion, The Creature From Jekyll Island. I own four copies. I loaned one to a guy in my ward, after he read it he went out and ordered six copies for himself. I had a landlord in California who I loaned one to, after he read it he claimed it was the most influential book he had ever read in his life, and he was a voracious reader, entered the University of Maryland at age 16. It is a book you will highly value—well, perhaps so.
Shaun,
see, this is what I cannot stand:
“nothing but distortion?” And you wonder why I don’t take you, Mr. Allen, Mr. Skousen or anybody else you wish to parrot seriously.
And I’m sorry but J. Reuben Clark was wrong about what he said. He also offered nothing but circumstantial evidence. I would tell this to his face if he were alive today. He of course wouldn’t care, because he’d think, like you probably think, that I’ve been brainwashed or something ridiculous.
Okay so I did a little digging into “Tragedy and Hope,” Professor Quigley’s book on the history of our time from 1890 to 1960. I obviously have not read the book and cannot comment on it directly, but I did find one of the reviewers on Amazon.com very enlightening about the premise of the book:
Now that makes a lot more sense than anything Skousen, Clarke, Allen, Benson have said combined. Furthermore, the part I highlighted is of high import. Skousen and Allen wish to portray these “elitist rulers” as maniacal conquerors while quoting from Quigley, yet Quigley himself did not see these “elitist rulers” as that, but rather altruistic. Why would Skousen and Allen say otherwise then? Furthermore, both Skousen and Allen do not offer any new evidence beyond quoting Quigley extensively too make their points. But if Quigley doesn’t see these elitist leaders in the same light as Allen and Skousen, what does that say about Allen and Skousen, and well all the rest of the conspiracy theorists out there?
Let me tell you, if I were a maniacal elitist billionaire hell bent on world domination, there are certain events I would ensure never came to pass. For example, the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Anyone who knows international politics, and especially Southwest Asia knows you don’t mess with those countries. If I’m making bazillions of dollars off the Cold War, what good does it do me to have one of my profit-making machines (The Soviet Union) lose so terribly? The second of course would have been Vietnam. What a terrible waste of resources! Thirdly, I would not have let Kruschev put nuclear weapons in Cuba. Hello! Dude, don’t get close to a nuclear war!
Occham’s Razor is a pretty clear principle. The simplest answer tends to be the right one. The super-wealthy will always lead the world. That’s just how it has always been and how it will always be. No surprise there. Now, what makes more sense? That all these super-wealthy belong to some secret order hell-bent on world domination through the control of countries and banks, or that these men, through their power and influence try to do what is right, but make mistakes like the rest of us? Without much evidence outside circumstantial evidence, the answer tends to be the latter, rather than the former.
I will take a look at Quigley’s book. I shall not, however ever get close to Skousen’s book.
Dan,
I’m stunned. I don’t know what to say.
You’ll never see things as I do, or those I study if you refuse to search and read the truth.
You cited me, then said: “this is what I hate.”
Why? What is to hate about my disdain against the History Textbooks?
I sat in a presentation at BYU over a decade ago (probably August 1994) and heard Vicke Jo Anderson from Arizona tell of the research she and her husband did on Christopher Columbus, who with George Washtington, John Wesley, and Benjamin Franklin was ordained a High Preist when waiting upon Wilford Woodruff in the St. George Temple for this work—yes, all four of those men on that occasion having merit to that Priesthood. Sister Anderson, author of “Wilford Woodruff’s Other Eminent Men and Woman” had personally been given access, along with her husband, to the original writings of Columbus in the archives in Spain. Vickie’s Husband majored in Spanish with a minor in “antiguo” or old spanish. They found in Columbus’ writings that he was given a vision after praying and fasting—his crew, determined to mutiny in short order, had him concerned. He was given a vision wherein he was told that they would discover land the next day: the land whereupon the New Jerusalem would be built. He also had a “new name” given to him in that vision. You can get some rich information on this in the Journal of Discourses too, where some of the early brethren speak of the Spaniards accounts of seeing personages dressed in white robes, which eluded them. Some of the early brethren spoke and identified in part at least Moroni as being chief among such notables, his having stewardship over this land of America.
Vicky shared many other things. She read letters Columbus wrote to the king and king of Spain declairing the rights of the native people before the law just as though they were any other spaniard. (Certainly not what textbook writers want you to discover about the fair minded Columbus.)
The great and powerful effect of Vickie’s presentation then of course was to give the standard US history Textbook story of Columbus. She began with the 1893 version. She quoted pages and pages, direct quotations from Columbus’ writings. [did you even gather he was literate from your history textbook? I remember being stunned to find anyone was literate back then—I had to get out of the government enforced priestcraft centers (public schools) to begin figuring this stuff out.] That 1893 text did not censor too much if at all his lengthy references to God and the Holy Ghost which he said was working upon him and giving him vision and courage to go forth upon the waters. (Perhaps though even then there was “omission” as to his vision and speaking of the New Jerusalem)
After that amazing insight into the History textbooks of a century ago, Vicky then quoted standard textbooks every twenty years on down the road.
By about the 1950’s, there were very few if any quotations from Columbus himself, and the overall subject matter of columbus was much reduced.
By the 1970’s, no mention of God, and no direct quotations, just a paragraph or two—not a thing to inspire the mind of a student with the truth.
The 1993 standard American History Textbook that sister Anderson quoted from was one or two sentences long, and maligned Columbus as a vicious, native destroying murderer, motivated for personal gain and greed.
So, you hate me speaking of “ommissions” and “distortions” in history textbooks? You bet.
I hate the fact this censorship has occurred, and it can be shown on any and every subject (and the ones not even addressed)—yes, it can be easily shown the history textbooks of today are an abomination, a vile waste of print and paper. General Authority H. Verlan Anderson was right when he stated our marxist government school system is “enforced priestcraft” which he makes the case for in his masterwork “The Great and Abominable Church of the Devil.” I suppose Dan, that is another book you will be determined to avoid at all cost.
I’m angry at these lies by history textbook authors. I’m angry that vast information has been removed from the history texts, and it is not by accident. We see how the Book of Mormon Gadianton’s always rewrote their history. The gadianton leaders always changed the history, brainwashing their followers and those they sought to manipulate that their “fathers had been robbed in the beginning.” What? How many times did the Nephites “flee” by warning of a dream and vision and go resettle and build cities away from their enemies? Nephi, Mosiah, and other examples, yet the gadianton scum would re-write the history and say “you robbed our fathers of their rights of leadership of this people?” The Gadianton’s operate no different today.
Now, there are those who still today vilify Christopher Columbus, even some of the sleeping Elders of Israel who if they wake not, will soon undergo a severe pruning out as the Lord begins to purge his church as spoken of in D&C 112, which Ezra Taft Benson said he “look[ed] forward to that cleansing. It’s need within the church is becoming increasingly apparent.”
I hope Dan that at least if you choose not to read anything I’ve made mention of, that you are reading daily and praying over what you study in the Book of Mormon. For “our minds in times past have been darkened” for treating lightly that book.
Ezra Taft Benson also stated in the 1986 First Presidency Christmas Devotional:
Dan,
More on Quigley, he loved these disgusting sicko’s and murderers of which his book gives an accounting. Of course he thought they were good, and he felt the “tragedy” was that they sought for now to keep their plans secret.
Think how “altruistic” Lucifer is. He didn’t want anyone to fail, all would return to the Father. Pres. Benson oftimes spoke of Satan’s “earlthy emmisaries.”
George Bernard Shaw was one. Shaw was a Fabian Socialist, and look at how wonderful and altruistic he was—or would you see things differently? He stated:
How would Satan describe, or George Bernard Shaw describe as did Quigley this “secret cabal” of which David Rockefeller boasts of belonging to which has been “conspiring” against the United States to bring about a “new world?” How indeed Dan?
Your criticising Skousen, Benson, Clark, and others for their stance against Satanic counterfiets and wickedness, as opposed to the enemy who paints the “elite” banker scum in a “good light” is frightening.
Book reviews are hopefully just a step in the right direction to getting the books and actually reading them. If you disdain Skousen, Benson, Pres. Clark for their testimony, you’ve lost one of the great battles for which we are here in mortality. The prophets teach that we are here to see who can be “decieved” and who will not be. The point comes down to “messengers.” What messengers to you heed? Lucifarians? Those opposing Christ who chooses and calls prophets to teach and give you the right perspective?
Shaun,
Um, yes I actually knew Columbus was literate, from those “Soviet socialist textbooks” you deride, in fact.
Yes actually, I will avoid that one. Shaun, unfortunately the way you come off towards me is very condescending. Because I don’t “see” what you see, I must be woefully ignorant of how the world around me REALLY works. Please, Mr. Philosopher-King, come back into the cave and save me from the evils of Communists! I am quite fully aware of the world around me, Shaun.
Of course I do. But can YOU accept that someone who does read his Book of Mormon and who is faithfully active in church does not even come close to believing the crap you spew forth? Or are you going to share yet again the same quotes from J. Reuben Clark and Ezra Taft Benson about sifting among the Saints? Why do you use the prophets against your own kind, Shaun? Every single time you quote a prophet with the intent to prove that your own way of thinking is the only way makes someone like me, a faithful active temple-worthy member of the church incensed, because you dare question my faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Is it ever possible to have a political debate with your kind without resorting to these quotes from dead prophets about “sifting” and so on? I highly doubt it. Your kind REALLY believes that the ONLY way to interpret scripture is the way you’ve chosen to interpret scripture. How sad.
So, let me get this straight, you believe there is a vast conspiracy at the top after reading a book from a guy who describes these individuals as misguided altruists. Yet somehow that evidence proves to you beyond a doubt that they are not in fact misguided altruists but evil-mongers bent on global conquest. Do you even realize how SILLY you sound?
How does God describe them? Because frankly I really could care less what Satan has to say.
There you go at it again. Heed YOUR call or be a sinner. Believe your crap or else. Blah blah blah.
Shaun,
Let’s delve a little bit more into the whole Christopher Columbus thing, because I’m frankly troubled by some of your comments:
Frankly, I am surprised you DIDN’T know that people in those times, especially ones of Christopher Columbus’ stature and place in society was literate. I mean, do you even know that the Gutenberg Press predates Columbus? Did you even know that universities existed throughout Europe in the 1400s? What do you even know about the Italian Renaissance? Frankly, what do you even know about European history, Shaun? Apparently very little.
This again is a distortion. I knew from my studies in high school just what Christopher Columbus thought of the natives. And they are not what you claim I should have learned from the “Soviet communist propaganda” I supposedly had. Nothing of what Ms. Vicky Jo Anderson said is any surprise to me. I already knew about the verifiable things. As to the supposed documents that show that Columbus had visions, well, again, I need to see evidence. See, I have the actual letters Columbus sent to the King and Queen of Spain. They are available online, with clear citations to the originals (of which there are still several—in fact one went on sale recently for like $900,000). Did Ms. Anderson show you the originals? Can she show you the originals? Where is her evidence? If you can show me the evidence, then I would agree with you that Columbus had such visions, or at least claimed to have them in his letters. But unless there is evidence, your points, once again, have no merit.
This is the problem when you tie your religious beliefs and your political beliefs together. The moment someone asks for evidence, you will inevitably feel like he is a “sign seeker.” Yeah, if I asked for evidence of a miracle from God, then you can call me a “sign seeker.” But if I ask evidence for historical events, then by golly you better provide them or your point has no merit and cannot stand scrutiny.
Dan,
I could be more diplomatic, and craft my position so as to not be condescending—which is not my intent, though I am extremely frustrated with LDS professing people who deride the prophets should they not agree with them.
You said:
When you have stated what you have about Presidents Clark and Benson, you bet I question your faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Absolutely I do. Do I trust your perspective? Not as long as it runs counter and even hostile to that which is taught by prophets.
You’re schooling was much better than mine in terms of the local government propaganda centers (this being the term Charlotte Iserbyte uses, she being from Ronald Reagan’s Department of Education, author of “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America”.) I don’t recall learning anything about Gutenburg and his remarkable, revolutionary press in my local propaganda center. I know I never heard anything about Columbus having a written record. Such was not ever disclosed to me, and I did find History to be a favorite subject; I remember being fascinated with the study of the explorers of the new world. How much more fascinating it would have been had I known there were written records, penned by their own hands! Wow, that would have been awesome to have been part of my history text.
Indeed Universities existed throughout Europe in the 1400’s, but I didn’t learn that until I exited the government propaganda centers and began to regain appetite for education, which now away from the enforced priestcraft centers continues to expand and intensify. I feel akin to Albert Einstein in his description:
So, the modern day government propaganda centers do much to stifle and injure the desire to learn. Based on the History textbooks we could lay hands upon in the government propaganda centers I would have learned very little, and truly did not learn much of anything at all—though in the 8th grade I was given an award before the school the last day for being the top History Student, having a 98% grade—all credit to the teacher in that case, as she was amazing in her teaching of the subject matter in that year which was US History, a big focus being WWII and Nazi Germany. After graduating High School and beginning to become enlightened by some of the Ezra Taft Benson suggested reading list, I recall looking at younger siblings history books and detecting sick, distorted lies, omissions, and propaganda. You certainly wouldn’t argue that case with me I would think.
It sounds like you did know of the Renaissance and European history Dan, much more than did I. You and your local propaganda center won out over me and my local propaganda center, no argument there.
I was delighted in College to find that through my college library were vast electronic documents of columbus’ writings. How wonderful to make such discoveries.
In your desiring to know of evidence of Sister Anderson’s reporting of Columbus’ accounting of visions, I have no objection at all to the need for verification that such documents exist and are verifiable. I can tell you that if I had such documents I’d shout them from the rooftops. I realize that for me to share my account from over a decade ago of someone else’s presentation at BYU Education week lacks verifiability and is not something one can just run with. I have to trust that Vicky was not lying about what she said in her presentation, and am forced to take “on faith” her not being a liar—but what would be superb would be to get, as you desire, the absolute verifiable documents. To seek such confirmation in order to believe the report I do not, nor would I say is “seeking a sign.” No, this is to be commended. No argument there.
I think it would be about time to get Sister Anderson contacted too, and see if such documentation might be provided, or obtained—for if such material were made available, it would have a great influence to help children currently sitting in the enforced priestcraft propaganda centers gain some interest to want to study and awaken their souls to some real scholarship outside the realm of their cursed textbook provided at the propaganda center. Clearly though, it is documented the change of History Textbooks over more than a century. Today the US Founders are hardly mentioned in them, and there is much distorting. In one of my College History classes, now armed with more reading materials and knowledge beginning to prosper outside the government propaganda center indoctrination of my younger years, I took great delight to bring in challenges to the textbook, and refutiate their damned lies. My history professor agreed with me that the textbooks were not accurate and could be called “propaganda.”
In terms of Jefferson, I loved bringing in this quote to share with the class, so as to counter the textbook designed to show Jefferson as anti-Religion. He was of course hostile toward the corrupt churches of his day, just as Joseph Smith was instructed not to unite to any of them, Jefferson too had no interest to unite with them and was critical, severely so, against them. The textbooks don’t reveal this in the proper context and clarity, leaving most students thinking Jefferson was a “deist” and not a “Christian.” So here is Jefferson’s statements I startled my class with (which incidentally I discovered in W. Cleon Skousen’s Book “The Majesty of God’s Law,” his life’s crowning work which David O. McKay asked him to write), I quote:
Yes, to read such statements in a college history class made me feel better, and cause a few students to become enlivened, wanting to know the source of the quote. How delightful. It came as a surprise to all, because of the textbooks misrepresentation and craftiness to paint a picture that would lead one to think Jefferson was not Christian, or holding to spiritual fundamentals in any remarkably notable degree as taught in the bible.
You speak of me sounding “silly” when speaking of vast conspiracies. Absolutely, yet you refuse to address David Rockefeller’s own admission of being part of a “secret cabal” which has been “conspiring” against the United States. What of that? You can walk into Barnes and Noble and look at his book yourself. It was published in 2002, entitled “Memoirs.” On page 405 Rockefeller boasts:
So who were these “ideological extremists” he was making reference to and then admitting they were accurate? Skousen, Benson, Clark, Allen. So think how silly it is to disregard Rockefeller now admitting what he has? Do you not seem silly to have this admission put in front of your face, and then you make the stand that you will never look at W. Cleon Skousen’s book[s]?
You can indeed prove me silly and lacking in many things of the academy, but when you seem to refuse Rockefeller’s statement—to not seem to address it—you are the one perhaps acting a bit silly.
Does Rockefeller seem silly to you? Do you think he’s writing fiction?
No, he laughs as do the angels in hell, knowing the government propaganda centers have done their great job of enforced priestcraft, bringing up a generation that seemingly can hear or read Rockefeller’s boasting of “conspiring” against them and of being part of a “secret cabal” yet they are so ineffective, and “dumbed down” that he Rockefeller has no fear of reprisal. Simply amazing such admissions can be made without fear.
Shaun,
See, there you go again. How dare I disagree with the prophets! Well let me ask you, Shaun, do you consider Elder Dallin H. Oaks a prophet of God? He stated that he found wisdom in liberalism, the very thing you so easily deride, the very thing at the heart of our supposed Soviet socialism propaganda education. Yet here is a prophet of the Lord saying he finds wisdom in liberalism. Furthermore, President Gordon B. Hinckley answered the following question as so:
That would include me. And guess what, when it comes to politics I completely disagree with the likes of Ezra Taft Benson and J. Reuben Clark. And you know what, that does not mean I deride them as prophets. Can you even possibly fathom such a distinction? I take it you cannot, seeing how often you’ve attacked me for daring to question Benson and Clark’s political views. President Hinckley also stated the following:
You really have no right, Shaun, to state that I deride prophets of the Lord when I disagree with them politically. You really REALLY need to separate your religious beliefs from politics, sir. Then perhaps we can have a better debate.
There you go again with the condescending derision, Shaun. You should know that me and my wife are in the world of education, so whenever you deride “the system” you deride me and my wife. I don’t appreciate it.
But yes, apparently my high school was far superior to yours. I even graduated with a 2.7 GPA and still know more than you about the history of our world. Where did you go to school?
I don’t know of any “government propaganda centers” but our public schools do not stifle and injure the desire to learn. Just ask my wife, a teacher, and soon to be a principal. Ask her just what her students learned in her last class. She is a Social Studies teacher, the very topic we are talking about. She knows even more than I do about history.
In fact, why don’t you go do a survey of the Social Studies educators in this country. Ask them about Columbus. Ask them if they know that Columbus was literate. I bet nearly 100% of them would say, yes, indeed, Christopher Columbus was a literate person. After all, they would reply, he wrote several letters with his own pen to the King and Queen of Spain.
You bet I argue against this slander.
Huh? I’m sorry dude, but this is a lie.
Dude, if you study any good textbook about the Founding Fathers you would find that many of them, including Jefferson, were Deists. They hated the religions of their day, but that did not mean they were atheists. So again, you are stating yet another lie.
As far as David Rockefeller goes, well, seeing that you (and Connor) have quoted him like five times already, I guess I should respond. Here’s my responses. So what? We already knew that the filthy rich have more power and influence in the world. So what? If you were filthy rich, you don’t think you’d do much to influence the world in the direction you wish it to go? Does that mean that Mr. Rockefeller works for the devil as the anti-Christ? Hardly. It just means he is in a position you’re not.
No, not really. Why should he fear telling the truth? I certainly don’t. But I know you do. Earlier on this thread I asked you to share your evidence of things, but you feared the ‘wolves’ of the Internet. Here is what you said:
So what if they can access such things? Why do you fear them? I certainly don’t.
Also, what just doesn’t make any sense is that you, Allen and Skousen, claim that there is a deliberate plot by the filthy rich to remove religion from textbooks, to dumb down Americans, etc.
Well, for what purpose? Why would they want to dumb down Americans? Do you have any evidence of, say someone like David Rockefeller, saying that he wants to dumb down this nation? This whole notion of dumbing down, of having Americans not know their history, math, science, etc. just doesn’t fit the facts, especially when more Americans today get a college education than ever before, these very same colleges and universities derided by Allen as Communist propaganda.
You YOURSELF stated that you learned more about history at college than you expected.
The accusations you make just do not fit the facts, Shaun. I really don’t care what you believe. You can believe in Santa Claus for all I care. That’s your right. But please, if you are going to make accusations against certain people or groups or organizations, and especially accusations against people like my wife, well, you better damn well have some evidence to back your accusations up.
Dan,
There is much to discuss here. I don’t disagree with Elder Oaks. Most LDS people would call me a “liberal” and Sean Hannity surely would, saying I’m part of the “liberal bloggosphere” that got all of my cronies to vote for Ron Paul in the Fox News Republican debate. Now there is a propagandist. To state one is “liberal” or “conservative” these days is not anything either you and I would trust, surely. For George W. Bush is given the label “conservative” yet he’s the greatest socialist president we’ve had since FDR, expanding government, regulation, and increasing taxes (through printing money and furthering debt) far beyond anyone in our history
You assert that I am at odds with Elder Oaks. Wrong. I too would agree with him. Liberals are those I agree with on the war, as well as many other things—I agree too with true conservatives (constitutionalists) on these things as well.
There are good democrats. Thank heavens for them. Then there are lame democrats who in Utah, in order to get elected go run in the Republican Party, ie Micheal O. Leavitte.
It’s fine to disagree with prophets if they are speaking of themselves, but I think we’ve had plenty of warning as to what the future holds in obedience to these prophets. Our great object is to align ourselves with the Lord. Does that mean to then change our opinion where needed? Here are some teachings that instruct on this issue:
Now, from Harold B. Lee:
Now clearly there is instruction there that we should lay hold upon. Do the prophets speak politically? Not often, and today perhaps not at all, if they did, such counsel would divide the church and create mass apostasy, even Harold B. Lee stated it so in a talk to BYU in the 1960’s, saying the Brethren do not tell people how to vote, for there would be nothing that would bring about a more rapid wholesale apostasy than if this were implemented.
You speak of me refraining to speak and share some things because of fear. It is not fear, but wisdom and the spirit working against such things. Joseph Smith explained the issue the morning he was murdered:
There are things that should be kept to smaller more private conversation—and this is not an attempt to come off arrogant. Don’t you have things you hold sacred? Of course you do. Do you share them randomly on postings on-line? Of course you don’t. There is sacred, valued insight that comes that we cannot post here, you have no argument against that I’m sure, and can appreciate the need of holding back.
You are right on Quoting Pres. Hinckley on holding different political stances. We should not speak ill of others and evil. I will have to look closely and see if my rhetorical arguments against you are in that vein, if so, then I’m failing the challenge, and in need of reprimand and apology. In years past I’ve taken the counsel of President Hinckley as clear reason to not blast the French and Germans in the idiot “freedom toast” and “freedom Fries” nonsense we would hear on a Limbaugh/Hannity/O’Reilly/Beck type of program.
In terms of our needing to be careful, think of this implication by President Hinckley in 1997:
I’m never going to publish insights anywhere that might be used to “entrap” these dear leaders.
In terms of being against the Education System, I am against it, but not against you. How many wonderful teachers are in the system fighting it and wanting to get the Federal Government back out of the system? How many teachers I know who despise the system, especially “No Child Left Behind” which is not a mistake, but more of this agenda for the “Deliberate Dumbing Down of America” which Charlotte Iserbyte speaks of.
I bet your wife is an excellent instructor. I applaud her and her knowledge, yours as well. For me to be against the system to also mean I’m “against the educators” is nonsense. That is like saying that because I’m against “preemptive” and unconstitutional, undeclared war means I’m “against the troops.”
So in answer to the question of fearing the wicked who might have access to things, I hope Joseph Smith’s quotation holds sufficient reason at holding back.
Okay gents, you’re way off topic, so I’ll ask you now to take this discussion to one of your own blogs. 🙂
President Hinckley’s quote as used by Shaun above:
“Our critics at home and abroad are watching us. In an effort to find fault, they listen to every word we say, hoping to entrap us.” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “Our Testimony to the World,” Ensign, May 1997, 83)
I take this quote as one of my reasons NOT to support Romney in his candidacy. I believe our critics are using every word he says as ammo against the Church. Satan would want it that way.
And Harold B. Lee says “We will see those who profess membership but secretly are plotting and trying to lead people not to follow the leadership that the Lord has set up to preside in this church.”
Because of Presiden’t Lee’s quote, we need to critically examine Romney before supporting him, simply because he professes membership in the Church.
Dan writes:
I don’t know what to say given you reject reading material I’ve suggested. Would you read Charlotte Iserbytes book “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America?” What do you know about John Dewey’s implementation of his theories and practices in American Education? Hugh Nibley blasts Dewy for his corrupt system of education which was implemented in the USA. There are vast books addressing this subject matter and the fundamentals and philosophies of education.
One real delight is a book by UCLA History professor Page Smith, entitled “Killing The Spirit” subtitled “The History of Higher Education in America”
If you accuse me of being “against the system” wait until you get a grip on Page Smith’s humorous book chronicling the history of education in America. Stunning book, the cover says it all:
http://www.awakeandarise.org/Images/Killingthespiritcover.jpg
You ask:
The answers Dan are in the books prophets have recommended us to read in decades past, and in many other books that have come along since that time. Hopefully those books I’ve already mentioned will merit your attention to begin to give answers.
You also state:
I don’t know that I said that exactly, what I did enjoy was taking in that which I had to gather from non “government propaganda center” sources to counter the textbooks, as in the example with Jefferson, who was not a deist—though admittedly some of his peers were.
You also state:
What do I know of your wife Dan? Accusations of your wife? The only thing I know is what you’ve stated. I’m sure she’s a great teacher. Think how much greater she could be were the Feds not dictating to her the curriculum in many cases?
You and your wife are not being accused by Elder Packer in the following statement, but the System is:
There is more to get in addition to this from prophets condemning the system—but don’t take offense as if though they are afronting you and your wife. Boyd K. Packer is an educator, his life’s profession. When he speaks this truth against the system, it is not against you.
Okay Connor,
I’m done.
I was pleased to see that Ron Paul on the small side of the 411-2 vote in the House last week which called on the UN to charge Iran’s Ahmadinejad with incitement to genocide (when he never did any such thing).
Paul, and Kucinich (who was the other vote against the measure) are probably about as honest as politicians get while the rest of our politicians are complete clowns as should be evidenced by this vote.
Ron Paul is a danger to the free lunch.
My humble opinion:
1 – To vote for either of two evils is to really throw your vote away. Who did you vote for in the last election, Bush or Kerry? Both were a wasted vote in my opinion. I voted for the Constitution Party candidate and am glad for it.
2 – Most Mormons are gaga over Mitt mainly because he’s a Mormon (I’m a Mormon so I feel I can say this). If he were a Catholic with the exact same record very few of our faith would line up behind him.
3 – The whole throw away your vote thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we didn’t collectively believe it it wouldn’t be true.
4 – What an embarrassment to our country when talking about the Constitution makes one a fringe candidate.
5 – Mormon lived in a time like ours. Let’s be Mormons and be like him, i.e. be involved and encourage those around us to do the right rather than the expedient thing.
6 – Go Ron Paul!
…what is the purpose of voting? Is it not to support and sustain the person I think most qualified for the office?
Yes, I agree.
I don’t think Mitt is a bad man. I wouldn’t mind if he were running my company or even if he were running my state. But I don’t think I want him for my President. We are so far off track in this country that we don’t even realize that most of the promises that Presidential Candidates make are a threat to our constitution! Just because Mitt’s promises might resonate with you better than Hillary’s doesn’t make them any less of a constitution. Mitt is wanting to be actively involved in “saving” the economy. I prefer Ron Paul’s hands off approach which leaves the corrupting influence of the lobbyists out in the cold and lets the market deliver what is most needed to where it is most needed in the most efficient manner. Success in the business world does not equate success in government. In the business world, you have to take risks, be creative, and be an authoritarian when it is called for; such tactics are illegal according to our constitution when applied to government.
Plus, I really don’t like seeing Mitt suck up to the Christian Coalition types who have so much disdain for Mormons. I’d rather have Dr. Paul who has proven that he rigorously defends freedom of religion, even religions outside of the mainstream.
Thanks for having this Blog. To be perfectly honest, the debate going on between Romney Supporters and Paul supporters is much better than your run of the mill blogs out there.
Can anyone quote the letter that is read ‘over the pulpit’ prior to elections? I’ve tried to find it…but in general, that is my guide. If it means I have to write in someone’s name, I’ll do it. I support Ron Paul. And according to my responsibility to vote for the person who best reflects my values, the statement “He doesn’t have a chance (of winning)” is completely irrelevant.
Can anyone quote the letter that is read ‘over the pulpit’ prior to elections?
One example of such a letter can be found here.
Lin,
You are absolutely right. All the time I get people, especially in the Church, telling me that I am wasting my vote and that I should be voting at least for someone who has a chance of winning. Interpreted, that usually means, “You should vote for someone who has the chance of beating Hillary.” The truth is, I would prefer Hillary over most of the Republican candidates, including Romney. Both parties have embraced tax-and-spend policies. The Republicans want to tax and spend on war and nation building. The Democrats want to tax and spend on social welfare programs. I consider the latter to be the lesser of the evils, although I consider both to be evil.
What bugs me even more is when people say, “A vote for Ron Paul is a vote for Hillary.” Huh? The only way that could be possible is if I would otherwise be voting for one of the other Republican candidates–which I would not. So if anything is true, a vote for Ron Paul would be a vote for Giuliani (or whoever . . .)
Only Ron Paul represents my ideals of good government, and is the only candidate who I consider to be honest, wise and good. And that is the counsel we have been given–not to choose between the most electable candidates. In fact, in my opinion, if I were to choose among the lesser of the evils, I would be going against the counsel we have been given.
Jay
Romney had to borrow money today from an aide to buy coffee for a small town mayor. Romney can’t balance his campaign budget either–he’s several million in the hole. Surely a person with such fiscal irresponsibility has no place at the head of our government. What a joke! As for Ron Paul, hopefully the media blackout will backfire on all those watch dogs turned guard dogs that many people think represent a free press. That will be funny! Go Ron, “The Revolution Starts Now.” (Steve Earle apparently doesn’t care who uses him anymore.)
Hi Connor,
I agree with you entirely on the need to support Ron Paul, no matter what the apparent odds. If Ron Paul doesn’t win, it doesn’t matter who does. If Ron Paul doesn’t win, then Hillary or Rudy, it’s immaterial. The same cabal owns all the other horses in the race. Hillary or Rudy, they will do what their masters dictate. I’d like to think that Mitt is exempt, but look at his past – is it free of questionable deals and compromises? Hardly! And past deals and compromises portend future ones!
Can we reliably expect social conservatism and Constitutional reverence from him? His stands on abortion, gay marriage, and socialized medicine give us fair warning on just what a doctrinaire Conservative he is! None at all.
Look at the Bush and Nixon administrations- they presided over some of the most precipitous slides ever into socialism, big government, and unconstitutional rule by fiat, while officially opposing such things, as per Republican doctrine.
I firmly believe that the apparent duel between Democrats and Republicans is just a puppet show to mislead and distract an uninformed public. The show isn’t reality, the winner hardly even matters. But electing Ron Paul, the only man that is not in any way controlled by the Bilderbergers, the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, the Rockefellers, and the Rothschilds – now that, unlike party platforms, is real!
I wish I could grab these so called realist voters by the shoulders, shake them, and tell them, “Don’t fall for the misguided belief that a vote for Paul is wasted. Don’t fall for fighting the straw man (or woman) being held before you, instead of fighting your real enemy! Your real enemy is Secret Combinations! Your real enemy is the shadowy group dangling big scary Hillary in front of you, a quaking, terrified Republican looking to Mitt, or Fred, or Rudy for salvation! Compromise is never more powerful than the Truth! If enough people act with courage and DO THE RIGHT THING, we won’t have to settle! We won’t have to vote for the ‘lesser of the evils’ that are being offered us by the Secret Combinations. For heaven’s sake, Saints, turn around and bite the hand holding your leash! Don’t tell me that your master is better than other masters, who might beat or starve you. Bite the hand and get free!”
What happened to all of that free-wheeling, utopian courage our pioneer ancestors had when they headed west with nothing but faith and a handcart? Wouldn’t they be ashamed of us spineless, compromised, non-risktakers still whining about that wasted vote for Perot! They’d say we’re about to get the government we deserve.
I just started blogging today. You can check out my rantings at http://anartistsmusings.blogspot.com/ . Keep up the good fight, Connor! Lonni
Lonni:
I for one would like to welcome you to a wonderful opportunity to engage in the discussion of our current political dilemma. It is refreshing to hear your well thought out words and opinions concerning Ron Paul. I hope you will find your new experience uplifting and beneficial. I have read your offerings elsewhere and found your insight to be helpful in my own search for the truth, and how best to define my participation in the political arena of the day. Please continue being involved.
Mitt Romney Bain entity benefited from $300 million fraud issues that was accomplished by admitted acts of false affidavits in Delaware Federal Courts. This Perjury is not being prosecuted because the law firm that admitted the false affidavits, Morris Nichols Arsht & Tunnel (MNAT) had a partner who is now the US Attorney for Delaware, Colm F Connolly. Who is now being promoted to a Federal Judge position. It seems it is a good career move to refuse to prosecute your partners, associates and clients of your firm. Wonder how much more will happen once Romney gets elected President?
There are so many things wrong with this statement… I don’t even know where to begin.
The Judgment Seats are being filled with Gaddianton Robbers and Kingmen… and all you can say is: “Moroni, you dork! Stop hacking up the enemies of the state!”
I’m a Latter-Day-Saint and I wholeheartedly support Ron Paul.
Read the book “AN ENEMY HATH DONE THIS” written by Ezra Taft Benson in the 1960’s. President Benson prophecised of the very thing that is going on with our corrupt government now.
By a man’s fruits shall he be known. Mitt Romney’s fruits are rotten. He is using the church members to get votes.
Ron Paul has a 20 year record of consistentcy.
Church scholar Cleon Skousen knew Ron Paul and if he were alive today, he would be whole-heartedly be supporting Ron Paul.
Do not be lulled away into a state of carnal security. Do not stay asleep! awake and do what God would want you to do.
Moroni fought for freedom and liberty! Soon we will have to also.
@Chuck
Not that I’m for Mitt Romney, but frankly, I don’t see what is wrong with using church members to get votes. If church members want to vote for him because he’s Mormon, so be it.
On one hand you speak of freedom and liberty and on the other you assume Mitt Romney has somehow taken those very things from these people and that they have no agency to choose whom they will for president.
Further, I don’t know that Benson’s book is what you suggest it is whether it came true or not. Even further than that, I don’t see why Cleon Skousen has anything to do with why one should or shouldn’t vote for Ron Paul or against Mitt Romney. Maybe because you throw “church scholar” in front of his name? An appeal to authority perhaps? Are you not using the same tactic you just hung Romney out to dry for?
Do not be lulled away into carnal security. Do not stay asleep. I submit to you that the freedom and liberty that you speak of in relation to Moroni is not what you think it is. I submit to you that the freedom and liberty that Moroni fought for was in direct relation to the exact opposite of what Christ said was slavery and bondage: sin. Moroni was really fighting for a world that was free and liberated from sin and wickedness. That was his freedom. That was his liberty.
Has anyone here seen this? If it’s right, it appears that Ron Paul won by a landslide in New Hampshire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV6qAGigGYY
Lol. Nah I hadn’t seen that and so that is a fun misprint in the Boston Globe but those numbers are all messed up so it wasn’t reasonable for the video guy to try and make sense of them by transposing McCain and Paul.
What is interesting though are the few counties where the numbers really did end up counted wrong (if only by a small margin). Sutton county for instance reported 0 votes for Paul with all ballots counted and a family of three that voted for him said ‘Hey wait a second we *know* he got three.’ Investigation determined that Sutton reported it right and his 31 votes in that county got zeroed out at the other end due to human error. 31 votes might not make any difference results-wise but it would be nice to have some better checks and balances built in to the voting system since so much rides upon it.
I’d like to think it gets better every year with quicker reporting, websites, spreadsheets, organizations like ‘blackboxvoting’ etc. but I gotta admit a certain apprehension about the new electronic voting machines. I like it better when conspiracy theories *require* large numbers of corrupt people and difficult cover-ups (as is the case with system-wide, hand-counted ballots) than when things disappear into computers with no ‘paper trail’ as it were.
The longer Ron Paul’s non-interventionist, free market, and constitutionalist views are being inserted into the debate, the better the country will be for it, even if he doesn’t come out on top.
Here, Here Kelton. I strongly agree. I’m actually rooting for Romney though I’m voting for Paul on Tuesday just to increase the odds of a brokered convention. A brokered convention could keep Paul in mainstream debates until September.
Paul’s message needs to be out there. I genuinely like some things about Obama (and I pray he wins the Dem nomination actually) — on foreign policy, at least his commercials point the right direction — but I don’t think Obama has anywhere near the understanding or commitment to ending our anti-Founder, anti-Liberty corportocracy-Empire around the world that Paul does.
A huge McCain landslide seems like it would end Paul’s campaign or push him to the much more easily ignored 3rd parties. So, lol, this Tuesday I’m for *both* Romney *and* Paul (heck and Huckabee and *anybody* else who can push this thing towards a “brokered convention”)
Truly Ron Paul is the sole member of Congress with any guts and conviction and vision at all. See here on the vote he lost in Congress: 404:1. Our government would have made Gadianton glow with pride.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll093.xml
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/107371.html
I’d like to hear his rationale. I respect Ron Paul for consistently adhering to the constitution and resisting abuses of government power, but this measure he voted against appears innocuous on the surface.
I’d like to hear his rationale. I respect Ron Paul for consistently adhering to the constitution and resisting abuses of government power, but this measure he voted against appears innocuous on the surface.
Jeff, his rationale is extensively explained in A Foreign Policy of Freedom (more info).
To summarize, Paul is against Congressional resolutions (and similar statements or legislation) commenting on, dictating, and recommending actions for and by other countries. Basically, he thinks we should stop telling other countries what they should and shouldn’t do.
For him, it’s all about the golden rule. You’ve probably heard him say, in some of the presidential debates, that we wouldn’t want China coming over here, deposing one of our leaders, patrolling the streets, propping up a new government, etc. Do unto others.
And so, while we don’t condone one nation firing a missile at another, it’s not really our place to speak out in this manner against the actions by another nation, when said actions have nothing to do with our own national security. Neither do we have the higher moral ground to authoritatively do so.
Additionally, Paul has commented (several times in the speeches compiled in that book) on the trend where such resolutions (condemnations of the actions of a sovereign nation) sway domestic public opinion and indirectly grant power and authority to the executive branch to intervene in the matter. Some resolutions, similar to this recent one, nebulously charge the President with remedying the matter, thus sidestepping the Constitution and enabling the executive to wage wars without a declaration.
Here’s one such example:
Another:
Another:
Examples abound.
I do think it is a proper matter of general principle for Paul – and one that he is obviously in a brave minority (of 1 this time) for understanding. But on the specific bill, that quote from the Israeli-Jewish press that Curtis linked was interesting:
The more I study the conflict there, the more I question the morality of our ingrained “duty” to further the pro-Israeli propaganda. I certainly don’t equate the secular Jewish state with the scriptural “House of Israel”. A secular Jewish state can play a role in the prophesied “literal gathering of Israel” but that doesn’t mean that it is auto-magically righteous and 100% moral. Mormons aren’t the only ones that seem to get caught up in this. Evangelicals often buy into the “Children of Israel”=”God’s People” therefore no Arab can do right (‘any action is probably terrorist in nature’) and every Jew is imbued with unerring right. But most troubling are the much larger numbers of secularly amoral/immoral politicians and lobbyists push policies that take advantage of the genuinely “religious” [and often uninformed] populace.
I’ve got similar doubts about what is being painted as Venezuelan agression against Columbia right now. [Columbia aggressively invaded Ecuador and killed “rebels” there supposedly to stop “potential terrorists” and when Venezuela spoke out against Columbia’s actions, President Bush stepped up the rhetoric against Venezeula.] Maybe Columbia is right and Venezuela and Ecuador are wrong but there are so many US troops in Columbia and the Bush administration has such open hostility to barriers to US corporate expansion in Venezuela that it muddies the picture.
The idea that our US legislators are the perfect arbiters of black/white morality in far-flung areas of the world and that they each possess clear, informed vision with no inappropriate influence-peddling or ulterior motives is one that I would honestly question. Too often “resolutions” become part of the problem and not the solutions.
Maybe somebody already posted this but here is what Paul said about the resolution:
Thanks Doug,
What a man Paul is. I understand his position of no position is the best position, but he also mentions how one-sided our resolutions are, which absolutely no politician, even Kucinich has the guts to proclaim.
I think it is obvious that the Congress doesn’t seek after a fair peace in the middle east, but a free ticket for Israel to roll over whoever they please.
Thanks!
I have heard rumblings that Ron Paul will not get the Republican nomination. McCain has achieved the # of delegates necessary, and Huckelbee has dropped out. I wonder what RP’s next move will be. Write-in voting? Third-party run?
I can’t express my dissappointment enough when I saw that Ron Paul voted in favor of House Resolution #322 today, along with 416 other Representatives. What a dissapointment.
http://www.aipac.org/Publications/SourceMaterialsCongressionalAction/H_Con_Res_322.pdf
It seemed a bit innocuous to me. What is the big deal?
Jay
I should explain myself more. The resolution is a one-sided acceptance of everything Israel has been doing for the last 60 years in spite of the horrific record of the state of Israel in using terrorism right from the time of its inception as a state in 1948, massacring thousands of Palestinian Arabs and chasing the rest from their homes (thus the current question of right of return for refugees). A casual study of the history of modern day Israel will reveal that Israel never accepted the borders of its land granted by the UN, but has always held a sort of manifest destiny to push Palestinians out of Palestine long before Hamas ever put anything in its charter about pushing Israel into the sea. Israel also brutally murdered our own military men aboard the USS Liberty in 1967, for which it was never held accountable.
The resolution also speaks of the “democracy” Israel has whereas in reality, 20% of its citizens live as second class citizens with curtailed privileges since they are Arab Israelis and not Jews. Truman never accepted Israel as a “Jewish state.” He accepted them as the “state of Israel.” To accept them as a Jewish state is to immediately accept the second class status of the Arabs that still live there. There are many reasons this resolution is not only an acceptance of an unjust and murderous state, but (considering the attack on the USS Liberty) is also a treasonous document.
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. To paraphrase “Give up. American is hopeless. We will never get a good just man in office. Vote for the lesser of two evils. Who cares if he or she will seek to destroy this great nation. At least we know that our vote counted.” Sorry to burst your bubble but YOU are responsible for the actions of those you vote for. One question. Have you ever seen a sign for any candidate other than Ron Paul? I haven’t. I’ve made it a point to look for others but I haven’t seen them. I drive a different route everyday from work. Ron Paul is the grass roots favorite. Primaries mean squat, and even in those RP has significant support more than Romney ever had. You’d never know that going by what media says. Listen if you’re basing any of your assumptions off of Fox, NBC, ABC etc you know jack about how any of the candidates are really doing. They are about as reliable as the enquirer. Bottom line. You can waste your vote on Mccain. I will not vote for an evil man. I’m voting Ron Paul.
Randon, interesting observation you made about not being able to see any signage for McCain, Obama or Hilary. But I’m afraid that the lack of signage is simply explained by the fact that because of the Electoral College, it would be a waste of money to provide lawn signs to Utah. They send all the signage to the “swing” states. Utah’s Electoral votes will safely go to McCain, so your vote will be absolutely meaningless. Because of the meaninglessness of my vote here in Utah, I am going to make myself happy by writing in Ron Paul on my absentee ballot.
Here is a link to the “zeitgeist Addendum” which features briefly Ron Paul commenting on the creation of money out of thin air. I thought you all might find this interesting.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912
Two and a half years later…
Connor, you’re a man after my own heart! Back at the time you posted this I was arguing these same points. Primarily that Ron Paul is a statesman worthy of our attention, promotion, and votes; that Romney is a politician who will say and do whatever he thinks will get him elected; and that voting your conscience is superior to supporting the lesser of two evils.
First, the reasons I have never supported Mitt Romney (and I gave him a fair chance) is because I found myself nodding my head to 90% of the things he said but I also found myself shaking my head at 90% of the things he’s done. This proves that he’s either inconsistent, dishonest, or both. Either way, as you pointed out, he seemed to care more about promoting himself to power than he did about liberty, the Constitution, and the American people.
I’ve been paying close attention to Ron Paul for about five years now and he consistently has proven himself to be a true statesman, a friend to liberty.
As I read through the first 15 or so comments I noticed a lot of people caring more about which party has a chance of winning than what principles are correct and which candidate will support those principles. I can (kind of) understand why some people would ignore John Quincy Adam’s quote on voting for principle but I have a harder time understanding why so many members conveniently ignore Hyrum Smith and Joseph Smith. Just so no member can brush off their statements as mere opinion or outdated advice, let’s see you LDS people ignore what the Lord said in D&C 98:10(4-11),
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.
Does the candidate you voted for in the past election pass the Lord’s criteria for supporting a person in secular office? Are they good, honest, and wise? If they weren’t, the Lord points out that your decision “cometh of evil”. Repent.
The time has come for people to be idealists. This herd mentality of we need to sacrifice our morals and vote for [someone who can win] needs to go. Why can’t we have it both ways? Do you think God endorses that philosophy?
Your points are valid, however, I think a more productive route would be to help in the political/constitutional education of Mr. Romney. He is head and shoulders ahead of Mr. Paul in terms of electability. And he has the religious understanding Mr. Paul does not.
Michael, I have to disagree. We’re not talking about educating a young man here, we’re talking about a seasoned politician in his sixties. He’s older than me, for heaven’s sake! If he doesn’t value and understand the Constitution by now, he’s not going to, and he has absolutely no excuses. Especially since he’s LDS! If J. Reuben Clark and Ezra Taft Benson haven’t permeated his consciousness by now, they never will! I’m sure he’s a very fine business person and savvy negotiator, but personally I’m looking for a different set of qualities in a president. He’s shown himself to be much too pragmatic and unsteady when it comes to matters of principle. Don’t you find it just a little ironic that it would be an LDS governor who would preside over his state’s adoption of a system of socialized medicine and gay marriage? And what excuse does he have for coming out in favor of abortion, before he “saw the light” or “saw the polls,” which ever it truly was? Furthermore, he carped the usual neocon prowar script when asked about War on Terror issues, rather than pointing out that the Constitution just might have some bearing upon the subject. He doesn’t get it. He never will. But you’re right, he’s head and shoulders more electable than Ron Paul, in the sense that his head and shoulders are fabulously handsome and presidential looking. He is one fine lookin’ man! But more electable? Nah! Are people today going around today saying, “Gee, Mitt Romney was right! If only we had elected him, our economy wouldn’t be imploding right now”? Nope! They’re saying it about Ron Paul, though. And on the matter of Romney’s “religious understanding”, it seems to me that he has quite a lot of difficulty actually implementing it. So I guess I’ll take the Baptist that honors and defends the Constitution, rather than the Mormon who gave it lip service but then ignored it and imposed a now predictably bankrupt system of socialized medicine on his state. It’s the old “where much is given, much is expected” thing, you know? I see more promise in waiting for Jason Chaffetz, thank you.
Michael,
I have to second most of Lonni’s observations. Mitt Romney has good stage presence but on most political philosophies that matter to me I find him severely lacking — not by missing education but by tragically flawed, calculated choice.
Romney decided to make national security the centerpiece of his Presidential campaign but consciously chose to sell-out to the PNAC / FPI crew whose sole purpose appears to be fearmongering and escalation of conflict in the middle east. He has years of high-level business experience but his political decisions regarding finance are bafflingly flawed beyond any reasonable expectation that it is a simple question of ‘lacking education’. When Mitt Romney proclaimed it wise to be more judicious in spending in every federal department *except* defense, for instance, I began to lose faith that Romney could transfer his business skills uncorrupted to public service. He railed on and on during the campaign about how ‘you can set *no* limits on the defense budget’ — as if there was no use at all examining military budgets for waste, fraud, etc. . . . as if politicians and bureaucrats were infallible in their careful use of defense funds to make sure our servicemen and women were always well equipped and defended . . . and as if it were some kind of unforgivable blasphemy to question the propriety of perpetual wars beyond any limits of actually being able to finance them.
Romney seems full of empty, unsupportable postures like that which are calculated to win votes amongst a shallow and casual electorate.
As for general electability, however, you’ll notice that Romney was not expected to win re-election as governor while Ron Paul keeps getting re-elected to U.S. Congress election after election. Perhaps Romney’s constituents began to see through his ephemeral posturings while Paul’s constituents found actual, thoughtful convictions behind each position.
Michael, this is why Romney is more accountable. He has more religious knowledge than Ron Paul ,but chooses to ignore it. Ron Paul has more love for and understanding of free agency in his little finger than Mitt has in his whole body and all without having the BOM. Mitt has the BOM but obviously has taken it lightly. He stands condemned because of the greater light he has received as a latter day saint.
Loved your comments, Marc, Lonnie and Doug.
To simply say: “Ron Paul is not electable and Mitt Romney is” is to only parrot the talking point we have been fed by the media. The truth however is, Ron Paul was VERY electable. Someone just told you he wasn’t and you somehow believed it. How many times was Paul re-elected? He’s still holding office – and Romney and Palin are not.
Here is an interesting 6-degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of thing. This is a video of Meg Whitman praising Van Jones the former communist green jobs czar to Obama. Meg Whitman is also and long time friend and colleague of Mitt Romney. Anyway, make whatever you wish of it…
Romney has the right skill-set. Times are tough. This cannot be experimental. Though very different from Ron Paul, Obama is also ideology driven. Lot’s of theory, a general unwillingness to deal.
Not this time. We’re running out of chances. Get the guy that has actually done it a few times.
Mitt Romney lied under oath. He was forced to when we sent proof to the WSJ, Los Angeles Times and others providing proof of his Off shore accounts. That is when he submitted a custom made Campaign finance form stipulating that he was only worth an estimated $250 million; that his money was in a Blind Family Trust – and he really had no idea how much money he has.
All anyone has to do is follow the money – there are some data bases – even he can not purge.
It is factual – that eToys is stolen property. Romney benefited from that federal fraud.
His company BAIN colluded with Goldman Sachs to defraud the public company. It was easy to accomplish. Bain and Goldman Sachs have the same attorney in DE. That law firm confessed to supplication of false affidavits in the DE federal court – that accomplished Fraud on the Court.
The reason the Dept of Justice did not investigate and prosecute the crimes; the DE US Attorney neglected to inform us – that he too was a partner with the Goldman Sachs and BAIN law firm in 2001. That is the very year that the crimes were committed.
Romney and BAIN owned the Learning Company – it merged with Mattle – who lost $1 billion dollars in the deal. Romney owns the lion share of Stage Stores – a bankruptcy engaged in Fraud with many of the same players invloved in eToys.
When a shareholder in Stage Stores owning only $4500 found some bad faith acts – the judge in that case fined him $300,000 and sent the US Marshals after him and his family.
eToys was in bankruptcy and Kay Bee Toys – a total of more than 5 times combined. BAIN now onws a monopoly on the independent retail toy industry – including Toys R Us. That acquired the bulk of the assets, eToys, Kay Bee Toys, FAO Schwartz, Baby Universe etc – thru Bankruptcy.
Romney and his group met the one attorney and his gang of cohorts at the NeoStar case in Florida; and have been getting more flagrant and brazen ever since.
You don’t have to be a good business man – if all you need to do is fix the problem by putting the entity into bankruptcy and stiffing all the creditors.
Very cool name, Laser, very petty arguments.
That sounds like a Resume pitch to work for Mitt.
Espeically if you consider Off shore accounts and federal fraud vis-a-vis the deliberate destruction of public companies for your own personal gain – to be a “petty” issue! Then you are their type of gal!
Please, Give America the breather She deserves. Giver her back her Constitution.
To feel the “change,” as professed by Mr. Obama in 2008, please join me and so many others in 2012 for Ron Paul. If you view his issues as radical, please, i beg of You to invest a little time to research exactly what is being talked about. America cannot afford more of the same.
Constitutionally, legislatively, and morally, Ron Paul has no equal. His 22 year voting record speaks for itself. The World is watching. Ron Paul for President in 2012.
Thank You
http://www.issues2000.org/tx/Ron_Paul.htm The facts speak for themselves
It is sad to see so many people claim that voting for the best man instead of one of the men favored by the two major political parties is nothing but a practice in ‘futile idealism’. We need more people to educate themselves and stand up for what they believe. It is time for more people to quit voting along party line when they themselves say that the system is broken but it is useless to resist. It is NEVER useless to stand up for that which you believe.
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Connor, I would so appreciate you updating this article with some of the more recent statements made by each candidate to reinforce your premise even further. I know none of their core positions have changed but I think Romney has further showed his lack of wisdom since 2007. There are still so many LDS Romney supporters in need of conversion 🙂
Did Romney’s Bain Plunder Howard Hughes?
It is sad to read neocons excusing dishonesty and hypocrisy based on the popularity the media has shown of Romney and the “non threatening” characteristics of Ron Paul.
Ron Paul is actually so threatening that the media makes sure not to show the MASSES (google it) he pulls in every rally, they hid that the military and veterans marched for him on President’s Day outside of the White House, and we’re so lazy to research international news where they actually are rooting for Dr Paul. In a nut shell, they hide him because if they showed the things happening due to his message they would have to take their little system down and retire.
Now popularity vote? Most of you defending Romney are LDS. I am not even asking because I know that’s why you remain in denial. Because you are LDS you should know that we’re told to NOT vote for parties but for principles. We’ve been told that besides keeping the commandment the next thing we have to do is to protect our constitution. End of Story.
We’re not keeping the commandments by wanting to bomb the crap our of the rest of the world and we’re not protecting the constitution by supporting someone that doesn’t even know it. Romney himself has said he is not the constitutionalist but that Ron Paul is.
You may remain in denial and vote for the “lesser evil” or the one that your “gut” says is called by God to be the next president (sorry to inform you but we’ve not been asked to sustain him), but we’ll all be accountable for the things we were told and the things we chose not to hear.
Mitt Romney is continuously benefiting from organized federal frauds of Bain and their cohorts. Including obvious cases of corruption of our federal system of justice – that ignored the confessions to 34 acts of Perjury and Intentional Fraud on the court.
Google my name and Bain – the truth can set you free.
I did; I googled “Laser Haas and Bain”–
very exhaustive; very exhausting. If this happened to you, I am sorry.
Perhaps one of the saddest fulfillments of prophecy in the last days is the loss of natural affection, i.e., many people don’t care any more about the suffering of people they don’t know–
*I* don’t know you, Laser Haas, but it’s obvious, and I don’t pretend to understand it, that you’ve experienced a real trial.
It’s important to know how any candidate has ‘behaved’ in his business/personal life.
Connor;
We concur and sincerely empathize with your research on Skull n Bones Bush, Kerry etc.
Only the ruthless and pathologicals get elected.
We are about to witness a 100% theft of the POTUS
and there’s NOTHING we can do about it!
Thanks outside the corridor (and I knew you googled/ researched etc.)
We are a vain/ self indulgent people.
All wise men (Aristotle, Sam Adams, Franklin, Gandhi, Einstein) have concurred.
We are not in trouble because of the evil that men do
The real problem is those who will do nothing about it.
Number one reason to vote for neither Ron Paul or Mitt Romney: the absolute failure of Austrian economics which both support.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/opinion/krugman-death-of-a-fairy-tale.html
Obama 2012
OTC,
Where is this prophecy about people loosing natural affection?
Connor, I am fully on board with everything said here and will also be voting for Ron Paul.
I dare say that voting for anyone else surely must be done out of ignorance, deception, or willful rebellion and part-of-the-problem.
Well, ladies & gents, we now are 33 days away from the main event(s). That being the RNC where Mitt Romney hopes and believes he will get the crown of being GOP nominee. That is, unless, Ron Paul spoils his plans.
Meanwhile, if you have taken notice, our plan to document the fact to the main stream media that Mitt Romney was CEO of Bain Capital during our eToys case in 2001. Well – it’s working.
Stay tuned ladies & gents – it’s going to get bumpy. But there’s a golden bowl of indictments for Mitt Romney & Bain Capital at the end of this rainbow.
Take note – Mitt Romney’s secret attorney (Paul Traub) who was with him at Stage Stores, Kay Bee Toys and eToys.
Well, a Federal Trustee, just a few weeks ago, named Paul Traub as “controller” of the $40 billion dollar Tom Petters ponzi scheme.
http://www.startribune.com/business/158560485.html