The Latter-day Liberator

Category: Politics

What Mormon Women Had To Say About Polygamy- Part 3

Posted on by William H. Douglas

This is the final part in this series where I have been comparing the actual words from women who lived in plural marriages with the claims that anti-Mormons make about what is was like for Latter-day Saint women. Unsurprisingly they do not match up. Latter-day Saint women found polygamy to be a liberating experience and say government efforts to eliminate polygamy as tyrannical and oppressive. They called the government out on the hypocrisy of claiming polygamy was oppressive whilst using state power to actually engage in oppressing women who wanted to engage in polygamy.

In the addresses reprinted herein they also discuss how polygamy helps to limit and eliminate serious social ills such as adultery, prostitution, elective abortion, and sexual immorality.

We also get an interpretation of the Twelfth Article of Faith that contradicts how most members today understand it but which the speaker learned directly from the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Finally these women saw that as the government increasingly legislated morality it wouldn’t only cause a massive loss of liberty but it would lead to social chaos, predicting the situation we find ourselves in now. They even endorse what today we would recognize as nullification.

These women were incredible and they deserve your time. You will be enlightened.

Why The Minimum Wage Has Never Worked, Will Never Work, And Only Devastates Poor People

Posted on by William H. Douglas

The minimum wage is a hot topic right now with a lot of ill-informed people having very loud opinions about what it should or shouldn’t be and what the government should or shouldn’t do. As Latter-day Saints we are of course drawn into the discussion because we, as a matter of commandment, have been directed by the Lord to care for the poor and needy, to uplift the sick and afflicted, to lift up the heads that hang low, and to strengthen the feeble knees of those ready to collapse under life’s burdens. But, caught up in the tumult of political opinion, many of us have no idea what we should or shouldn’t do regarding a great many things, including the minimum wage.

This article is meant to address that by looking at the effects of the minimum wage on poverty, jobs, prices, monetary value, income inequality, and its roots as a racist practice designed to cripple the ability of minorities and women to care for themselves and their communities. After looking at all the evidence of history the conclusion becomes inescapable – the minimum wage is a racist policy designed to destroy the ability of poor people, especially minorities, to be able to care for themselves or improve their lives and that if we want to actually help everyone in society, including helping those in need, we must take drastic action to rein in government actions, including abolishing the minimum wage.

What Mormon Women Had To Say About Polygamy- Part 2

Posted on by William H. Douglas

I pick up here right where I left off in Part 1 – in the middle of the Great Indignation Meeting. Threatened by new anti-Mormon legislation aimed at destroying polygamy and annihilating the church, the women of the church have come together in a mass meeting. In it they defend polygamy as one of the greatest revelations God had given, demand that the United States government honor and recognize their rights to believe and live how they choose, declare that polygamy and the doctrines of the church have helped them to have greater rights than any other place in the United States, proclaim their status as mutual helpmeets and workers with men, and denounce efforts to attack the church and end plural marriage as being inspired by Satan himself. When you listen to them it becomes clear that they were not oppressed or abused, rather these were powerful, intelligent, and empowered women who were acting to protect one of the most important factors in their independence, the Latter-day Saint practice of plural marriage. Their experiences, their voices, their truths counter anti-Mormon lies and show us why we shouldn’t be ashamed of our past practice of plural marriage. Instead of listening to the ignorant and liars, read the words of the women themselves who lived it. You might be surprised.

Ancient Biblical Anarchy In The Law Of Moses

Posted on by William H. Douglas

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.

What Mormon Women Had To Say About Polygamy- Part 1

Posted on by William H. Douglas

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.

LDS Reviews: The Falcon and The Winter Soldier

Posted on by William H. Douglas

Here I review “The Falcon and The Winter Soldier,” Disney’s newest MCU show, not only for entertainment value but for the messages and ideals it promotes as a piece of mass media. It doesn’t shy away from issues of military violence, state propaganda aimed at civilians, poverty, political oppression, blowback, racism, hope, and friendship. After giving a basic synopsis of the show I then address each of these themes and how they are explored within the context of the show, comparing them to the ideals and ethics of Christianity and human liberty.

How Language Is Used To Convince You Of Transgender Ideas And How To Fight Back

Posted on by William H. Douglas

There is a lot being said right now about gender dysphoria, transgenderism, and the usage of personal pronouns to affirm a person’s individual gender identity. In this article I cite several studies to prove a few very important things: Language has a massive influence on the way that we see the world, that altering how we speak, even in small grammatical ways, has a huge impact on our consciousness itself, that the repetition of information over time changes the way we think and convinces us that what we are saying or hearing is true, and that ideas spread like virus, co-opting what we believe and how we live and changing them to turn us into ideological spreaders. I then put it all together to argue that the usage of preferred pronouns takes advantages of all these facts and act like a viral vector to infect us with the beliefs and ideals of transgenderism. The ultimate culmination of this is a form of reality control where what we believe is re-written by the things we hear repeatedly until we win the victory over ourselves and adopt the ideas in question as our own – in this case transgenderism. Finally, I discuss how we can resist this process and why liberty is so essential in establishing a society where all people can live as they believe.

The Truth About Mormon Culture And Why It Is Amazing

Posted on by William H. Douglas

There is no end to the handwringing that and internet article posts made by members and non-members of the Church of Jesus Christ that claim to accurately diagnose problems in “Mormon culture” and then offer solutions. Claims of homophobia, sexism, racism, nativism, transphobia, hatred, cliquishness, and more are all laid at the feet of the Latter-day Saints, told their culture is to blame, and demand (or “suggestions”) are made that will supposedly banish these ills from Latter-day Saints society. But is this true? It is certainly true that Latter-day Saints do some of these things, but is the reason they do it because of the influence of uniquely LDS theology and cultural beliefs?

In a word? No. These problems exist among Latter-day Saints, but these problems are not caused by Latter-day Saint or Mormon culture. Rather, Latter-day Saints are made scapegoats for problems which exist universally in the worldly societies in which Latter-day Saints participate and the values of which they have absorbed. When a Latter-day Saint is sexist, racist, nativist, etc., he or she is acting out the prejudices and biases of his or her own national culture and not so-called Mormon culture. In this article I explain how Latter-day Saints are indoctrinated into the virtues and vices of their national cultures and end up repeating those errors which are then incorrectly blames on Mormonism’s influence. I also talk about how you can get down to what is an actual, true Latter-day Saint culture, providing some examples to support my arguments about what it is and what it looks like. Finally, I conclude by looking at how real Latter-day Saint culture is a manifestation of the culture of Christ, which we should embrace wholeheartedly while abandoning all the Babylonian cultures of the world.

President Oaks Taught The Principles of Anarchy at General Conference

Posted on by William H. Douglas

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.

Great Profiles in Courage: William Lloyd Garrison in Baltimore Jail

Posted on by William H. Douglas

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.