Pioneer Day is today. Celebrating the first time a company of Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley to permanently settle there, it is the closest thing we Latter-day Saints have to our own church holy day (holiday.) But there is a lot to this story that we don’t tell on Pioneer Day, a lot of our history and precious truth that we leave on the cutting room floor. For example: The pioneers weren’t really pioneers. They were really refugees illegally immigrating into Mexico in order to escape the decades of pogroms, ethnic cleansings, exterminations, and genocide they had suffered in the United States. This article is an attempt to tell this story of our spiritual and literal ancestors so that we can apply to real lessons of our history to the world we live in today and make it a better place, a more Christ-like place, a Zion-place.
Category: Politics
This Is Why People Obey Evil Governments
The state is an unmitigated and obvious evil. It threatens to beat, cage, or kill anyone who questions it. It violently extorts wealth from even the poorest people. It forces us to pay for the privilege of engaging in even basic purchases. Its regulations wreck the economy and increase poverty. Its police forces abuse, oppress, and murder people domestically while its military forces slaughter people internationally. It destroys property rights and virtually lays claim to the true ownership of all land and wealth within its borders. It attacks, hurts and destroys rich and poor alike. Its leaders are corrupt, oppressive, monsters.
So why is it that so many people are so quick to defend it, serve it, obey it, die for it, and engage in human sacrifice as they send their children to be killed for it?
In this article I answer these questions. This is why people obey even evil governments.
“A Quiet Place” And The Terror of Social Media
The “A Quiet Place” movies have both seemingly struck a cord with society in recent years, racking up both praise and dollars in the process. This makes sense. Good horror does more than shock us or even scare us. Good horror tells stories about human fears and thereby helps us understand ourselves and our society better. The “A Quiet Place” movies do this very well. Its stories full of monsters ready to kill people and destroy lives for speaking mirrors well the very real dangers we face in today’s toxic social media world. This article explores how the “A Quiet Place” movies explore the dangers of social media as well as the message of hope these movies have about how to defeat those dangers.
The Insanity of the Left-Right Political Fallacy
The idea that all beliefs and ideologies which humans have can be divided into the simplistic Left-Right political spectrum (with “Progressivism” and Communism on the Left and “Conservatism” and Fascism on the Right) is so pervasive in our political language and thought that it can rightfully be said to completely dominate way that modern people conceive of the entire world. But, does it make sense? Does it accurately reflect the true nature of society? And what effect does thinking of the world in this way have on how we treat each other and society as a whole? In this article I not only look at the history of this idea, but I also look at the completely irrational nature of it and the entirely destructive effects it has on human society and human relationships. The left-right political spectrum is illogical poisonous nonsense that does nothing but promote idiocy and hatred.
What Liberty Is And Why It Is So Important
Why liberty is so important? Why does it matter to us today? Why wouldn’t we want those in power to “fix” the world for everyone even if it means trading our freedom in for subservience to the social and political agenda of those in power? What is liberty to begin with? How do I even know if I am losing it or not? By the end of this article, I will have done three things. First, I will have expanded on what the nature of liberty is in greater detail, so we know exactly what we are talking about. Secondly, I will then provide an analysis of why liberty is so unpopular in our modern age. Finally, I will offer an argument for why liberty should be more popular and why it should be embraced by all people.
The Christian Origins of Individual Freedom
What does it mean to be free? How do you protect liberty? What role, if any, does the government and/or religion play in liberty, either in protecting it or degrading it? These are important questions that we need the answers to if we are to realize our potential as individuals and peoples. In order to understand what freedom is, how we gain it, how we preserve it, and how to increase it in the future, we must know the history of the ideas of liberty. All of those things is what this article is all about.
“Salem’s Lot” – The State is a Vampire
In this LDS Book Review I review one of Stephen King’s earliest and best novels – the vampire horror story, “Salem’s Lot.” Printed in 1975, “Salem’s Lot” tells the story of a ragtag group of small town folk as they fight against a powerful source of true evil, the Master Vampire Kurt Barlow as he converts the town of Jerusalem’s Lot into vampires. The story contains numerous themes that stand out to a person of faith – including battling against true evil as Barlow isn’t just a vampire but he is specifically a worshipper of Satan and sacrifices at least one human child to the Lord of Flies in the book. This novel also has some powerful things to say about government and the State. So in this review I don’t just review the book I also explore what it means to compare the State to vampirism as the book does, the true meaning of religion as a cosmic force, and the conflict between God and the government. The story of “Salem’s Lot” couldn’t be a more apt metaphor for what the State does to individuals and society and what we must do to drive a stake through the heart of the State and reclaim our individuality and liberty.
What Mormon Women Had To Say About Polygamy – The Great Indignation Meeting
The discussion of plural marriage and the practice of polygamy among the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is dominated by a lot of ignorance, error, and anti-Mormon lies. While it is no surprise that non-members would believe these things the degree to which members of the church view polygamy as oppressive, anti-woman, and abusive is shocking and depressing. In an effort to correct these lies I have appealed directly to the words of the women who lived polygamy themselves and what they had to say about their lives. For that I turned to the printed account of The Great Indignation Meeting, a mass protest meeting held by the women of Utah in 1870 wherein they declared the ways that polygamy elevated them in society and protected their rights, denounced federal efforts to violate their human rights by making polygamy unconstitutional, and announced that they would rather die than submit to the oppressive laws of the government that would deny them their rights to plural marriage. The words of these powerful and intelligent women absolutely demolish the lies of anti-Mormons and promote the truths of the Restored Gospel.
What Christians Should Think of Memorial Day
Today I want to share a talk that a friend of mine delivered the Sunday before Memorial Day in 2017. He used Apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s General Conference address, “Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear,” to counter the endless bombardment of propaganda that takes place at this time. My friend told the truth about the pro-state, pro-military lies that inundate us, preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and focused on the Gospel’s demand that we renounce violence and fear as means to achieving our social, political, or economic ends. In turn he also talks about the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the US military, the idolatry of worship weapons as if they can keep you safe, missionary work, serving our enemies, loving those who hate us, and the way to build Zion.
Stephen King’s Roadwork: A Parable of Life in a Fallen World and the Light of Hope
Using the lesser known but well written Stephen King novel, “Roadwork,” as a jumping off point, this article explores the vicissitudes of life and how it seems like mortality just piles suffering and pain on top of suffering and pain until we either are crushed under the weight, seek escape in mind-numbing hedonism, or snap and engage in retaliatory violence at the world that has so hurt us. I explore how this happens and why it happens, augmenting the fictional story with a real life example of Marvin Heemeyer, a man driven to the breaking point who struck back at his persecutors, and why we don’t need to similarly give in to such despair. There is a source of hope in the despair, a blinding light in the darkness that can rescue us from the suffering and depression in life. That Light is Jesus Christ which I explain as the solution and salvation to the problems of the world. There is a better way than either suffering or vengeance and the is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the power it gives us to tame the monster within us and create a world of light and joy.