One of the most common mistakes that people make when reading the scriptures has to do with what they think it says about government. For example, most people read the stories of Saul, David, Solomon, and the succeeding kings of Judah and Ephraim as some divine endorsement of monarchy or, more generally, statism. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. All the kings of the Israelites were absolute disasters and everything after 1 Samuel 8 is the fulfillment of a warning God gives the Israelites that choosing the rule of men over His rule would be nothing but a disaster. The Old Testament is deeply anti-monarchist and anti-statist. This brings up an important question though: If God didn’t endorse kings (or the state more generally) then what kind of government does He support? What does it look like when you have God as your King? Here I answer this question while laying out what modern forms of government most closely match or best allow for God’s government to be established among His people.
Category: Government
What Mormon Women Had To Say About Polygamy- Part 1
We all know how we are supposed to think and feel about the practice of polygamy by early Latter-day Saints. We have been told that it was sexist, oppressive, abusive, and harmful to women, something we should be ashamed of, so much that even many Latter-day Saints assume the assertions are axiomatic. But, are they? Are these statements in fact true or are they, like so many other things today, merely modern anti-Mormon drivel projected onto the past?
In order to figure this out I have decided to go back to listen the voices of the women who had firsthand experience with plural marriage, the polygamous women of Utah, to see what they had to say about the practice. Needless to say what I found is quite the opposite of the malignancies spread about plural marriage today. These powerful, intelligent, educated women saw plural marriage as an essential right of theirs that brought numerous blessings and protections to their lives which they would rather die fighting to protect than give up at the demand of the law. In this series I want to make their voices heard to counter the lies falsely spread in their name in by anti-Mormons. When it comes to plural marriage, thee truth about, like everything else, will set us free of the falsehoods we believe and reaffirm the truth of the Restored Gospel.
The Great Dangers of Democratic Socialism to Minorities
There is a lot written about the titanic failures of Socialism and I’m sure more will be written in the years to come. But, thanks in part to the fetishization of democracy and the propaganda fed into the minds of people that convinces them of the lie that all you need in order to have a just, equal, free, and prosperous society is to “enhance democracy” within it, there is not enough written about the grave dangers of democratic socialism. And I use the term grave here exactly because that is where most minority peoples would end up in a democratic socialist society – in the grave. Every genocide, every act of slavery, every war crime, every act of segregation, every act of apartheid, every act of systemic oppression has always been a public, democratic, popular endeavor. Placing within the hands of a majority the power to do whatever it wills has been and always will be a disaster. This article is about how “democratic socialism” does nothing but exacerbate these threats to the lives and liberties of those weakest in any society – its racial, ethnic, and religious minorities.
President Oaks Taught The Principles of Anarchy at General Conference
This past weekend was General Conference and President Dallin H. Oaks delivered an address where he outlined five inspired principles of government which he taught are what make the U.S. Constitution an inspired document and why Latter-day Saints should feel some special loyalty to the document. Outside of the typical American culturalism in his talk, what really astounded me was that the five principles he outlined are not unique to the U.S. Constitution. They’re not even fully realized in the Constitution because of how the violence of statism limits or altogether prevents these inspired principles from operating to their fullest. But they do in consensual, non-statist government systems such as those found in libertarianism, anarchism, and voluntaryism. In this article I explore each principle individually, demonstrate how they are hobbled in the U.S Constitution, and how they are actually principles of consensual governments like anarchy, libertarianism, and voluntaryism because those forms of government allow these divine principles to operate at their highest and holiest potentials. In teaching these divine principles as the basis for righteous governments, President Oaks has inadvertently made the strongest argument for the rejection of the U.S. Constitution and the embracing of anarchy I have heard from any General Authority.
How To Achieve World Peace
Last weekend was both Pascha (Easter) and General Conference, making it a weekend doubly full of spiritual blessings. One of the most powerful talks given was Elder Jeffrey R. Hollands discourse “Not as the World Giveth,” he addresses the problems of the world – its violence, hatred, and contention, all of which originate in Satan and wicked influences – and explains how we can find solutions to these problems can be found in the Covenant of Peace – the concepts, teachings, and ordinances that can only be fully found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the world we find wars and rumors of wars, rape, murder, greed, anger, social division, isolation, oppression, mockery, corruption, riots, mobs, and every excuse humans can think of to despise one another, kill one another, and hate our blood. Elder Holland then goes on to talk about the solutions to these problems and mentions three Christian principles that, if fully realized, would end all the problems of the world. These are Faith, Hope, and Charity. In this article I breakdown each of these principles and doctrines of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and show how they hold within themselves the power to truly transform the world into the place of peace, love, and liberty that we all wish it was already. Within these three principles is the key to world peace, to Zion.
Review- Robert Heinlein’s “Job: A Comedy of Justice”
In this first entry in my irregular book review series, I sit down to review Robert A. Heinlein’s “Job: A Comedy of Justice.” Heinlein is considered one of the greatest science-fiction writers in history whose influence can be felt all across the spectrum of Western culture, including in art, television, books, and literature. His writings explore ideas of individualism, society, community, faith, religion, sex, and human rights.
In “Job: A Comedy of Justice,” Heinlein adapts the classic biblical poem of Job into a modern tale set in the late 90s where a man and woman are being hurled through parallel universes at random as reality begins to collapse in the face of the oncoming End of Days and Final Judgment. In my review I cover the story of the book itself, examine the ideas of liberty and human rights that story espouses, study Heinlein’s prose, and evaluate how Heinlein’s need to proselytize for his own radical religious and sexual ideals affects the character and storytelling.
This book has Heinlein at his best and his worst and I explore it all.
Great Profiles in Courage: William Lloyd Garrison in Baltimore Jail
History is full of examples of great men and women defying society and state to stand for what is right, good, and true against the injustices, corruption, greed, and violence of the world. This is the first in what will be an irregular series designed to help highlight some of these important, powerful, but sometimes unknown stands, the heroes and heroines who took them, and the lessons we can learn to apply in for our lives today.
This first article highlights the experience of one of our heroes, William Lloyd Garrison. He was one of the loudest, clearest, and most powerful voices for the immediate ending of slavery and his newspaper, The Liberator, was the beating heart of the abolitionist movement. But in 1830, when he was imprisoned for libel because he dared to tell the truth about a local merchant’s participation in the slave trade, he wasn’t influential or well-known. So when faced with a court case against a much wealthier corrupt opponent he did what many other poor people did – he went to jail. Rather than back down, recant the truth, and abandon the cause of justice. Garrison chose to go to prison. This is the story of Garrison’s defiance of the law and social custom, his persecution for it, and the lessons we can learn to apply in our own lives as we seek authenticity, justice, and holiness.
What Christians Need To Know About Romans 13
The traditional argument says that in Romans 13 Romans 13 the Apostle Paul tells Christians that they should be obedient to their governments which have been appointed by God to be His servants on Earth. But is that what the Paul really taught? In a word? No. Not even close. In this article I delve into what exactly Romans 13 does teach.
First, after looking at the teachings of multiple theologians and the text of the scripture itself, I demonstrate that even assuming Paul is talking about governments he isn’t teaching that we should be obedient to every government or that every government is from God. Rather Paul teaches that Christians should only obey governments as the laws and actions of those governments accord with the commandments of God – which means that Christians are not bound to obey most modern governments.
Next, I attempt a re-interpretation of Paul. After delving into the actual Greek text and the meanings of the words that Paul used, I conclude that Paul isn’t even talking about worldly governments at all. Instead Paul is actually talking about the kind of relationship that Christians should have to the church and its leaders, as well as the role those Church leaders should play in the lives of Christians.
No matter how you look at it, the Apostle Paul did not teach Christians that they should be obedient to governments or that worldly governments are God’s servants. And those that think otherwise have misunderstood the scriptures.
The Insidious Ways That Governments Use Propaganda To Control You
Over the last year I have written repeatedly on the different ways that governments utilize propaganda to manipulate the public into obeying those in power even when such obedience violates the individual’s basic humanity, his or her basic human rights. Yet, I am still left me lacking an explanation for how propaganda is used to manufacture the consent of the masses to taking part in a system that is built to profit the very few rich and powerful political and corporate leaders at the top at the cost of all the rest of us.
I couldn’t understand why people have fetishized democracy as if merely having a system of elections would protect people from those in power while ignoring the ideals and values that make democracy anything other than the choosing of a new dictator every four to six years. I could not understand how something like the Deep State/Double Government could develop in the most fervently democratic age in human history.
That changed once I was exposed to the book Propaganda by Edward Bernays. An experienced propagandist himself, having produced propaganda for the US government during World War I, Bernays literally wrote a book about how the government uses propaganda in times of peace to “engineer the consent” of the masses and to secure their obedience to those in power.
In this article I delve into his book and pull out some choice excerpts that can helps us to understand the ways that the masses are indoctrinated with government propaganda without realizing it, how the government uses propaganda to manipulate and control the masses, and what we can do about it. This one is an eye-opener for everyone, no matter what your political or religious beliefs.
How To Understand The Deep State
The term “Deep State” is much maligned and is often dismissed as a conspiracy theory with the idea that the heads of the various bureaucracies that run the different functions of government exercising some controlling influence over the elected leaders of the nation being treated as preposterous. But, is it so crazy to think that the unelected and largely unaccountable heads of the various departments of state within the Executive Branch have influence and power beyond the limits that the people suppose they have and have greater power over the functions of government and elected leaders than the public understands?
To figure this out I want to share with you an interview with Dr. Michael J Glennon about his book “National Security and Double Government,” one of the most important books on the function of government in the last 50 years. He is a respected intellectual, with decades of experience in academia, law, and the American political system. In this interview he warns that the dominance of the national security departments in the US government has established a verifiable “Double Government” that places the nation “on the path to autocracy” that will render its elected branches as mere functionaries and museum pieces if we don’t do something now to prevent it.
Here he lays out the thesis of his book and his basic argument for why we should be worried about the power of the burgeoning Nation Security State, which he calls Double Government and which most others call the Deep State, why it has the influence and power it does, the media’s role in furthering it, and what we should be doing to challenge it before it is too late. If you want to understand the reality and dangers of what people call the Deep State, not just in the USA but in a model that applies equally to all democratic and republican governments, here is the place to start.