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.
Tag: Liberty
LDS Reviews: The Falcon and The Winter Soldier
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
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.
Why I Am A Radical (And Why You Should Be, Too!)
I am often asked why I feel that I have to be so radical in my positions. Cannot I not moderate my views and make compromises in order to win immediate political victories? The answer is a resounding, “NO!” And this article is the reason why. It is an explanation of why compromising, often presented as some virtue, is in fact an evil that has wrought nothing but misery for millions of people and why I am a radical who refuses to abandon the morality and truths that I know and why you shouldn’t either. This is why we should all be radicals and why being a radical is the only way to make the world a better place.
The U.S. Constitution: A Covenant With Death, An Agreement With Hell
In American Latter-day Saint circles there is much idolatry over the issue of the U.S. Constitution. Most of it has to do with a particularly willful misunderstanding of most statements on the Constitution found in the scriptures, the purpose of government, the rights of the people in the face of oppressive government laws, and the supremacy of God’s law to man’s in all cases. American Latter-day Saints also tend to idolize the American Founding Fathers. Much is made of the Lord’s statement, “by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose,” that is for writing the Constitution. (see D&C 101:80) It is without a doubt that they were intelligent men. The writings of Thomas Jefferson are still worth studying even today. But that doesn’t justify us in not creating something better now than they could envision then; that doesn’t justify us calcifying out social, spiritual, political, and economic development because they could not imagine the next step in liberty and individual freedom. It does not justify us in idolizing the Constitution (or your respective national charter), ignoring the many ways it has been wrong, corrupt, and evil form the very start, and choosing it over that which is better now.
When We Should Break The Law
From our earliest days, when the Prophet Joseph and Patriarch Hyrum suffered in Liberty Jail and died in Carthage Jail, to the Saints spending nearly 30 years resisting Federal anti-polygamy laws, practicing civil disobedience and being willing to go to prison in order to serve God, on down to the modern day we have examples of the lives of great Saints who have repeatedly broken the laws of the land in order to do what is right and to serve God. Latter-day Saint history is full of rebels and rogues, people who would rather be exiled from the nation, who would rather be killed, than disobey the Lord. So how is it that so many of us have become so milquetoast about standing up the government tyranny? Why is it that so many of us think that the Saints should “strictly obey the laws of the government in which they live,” even when such laws aren’t just wrong or immoral, but even when said laws actively compel us either to disobey God or punish us for obeying Him? While there are numerous reasons, one of the largest is because Latter-day Saints have misinterpreted the Twelfth Article of Faith, D&C 58:21, and D&C 134:5 as giving commandments to the Saints to obey the law and to comply even with evil laws. A close examination of these scriptures though, as I attempt here, show that such interpretations are, by the large, gross nonsense.
The Lockdowns Are Starving the Poor
Hundreds of millions of people around the world are seeing everything they have ever worked for in life, all their hopes and dreams, destroyed as the state ordered lockdowns drive them and their families into unrelenting poverty, starvation, and death. This has little to do with Covid-19 and everything to do with our response to it and if we don’t want to cause the deaths of millions of people the way we are handling this sickness must change, immediately.
A Christian’s Duty to Society
The fallen society we find ourselves living in is rife with corruption, violence, brutality, and evil. As followers of Jesus Christ, what exactly is our role in trying to change this, how do we do it, and just how dedicated should we be to that cause? Here I address these questions about the greatest source of violence, brutality, and corruption in the world today.
The Best Version of the “Battle Hymn of The Republic”
In many churches in America, you’ll find the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” -a song that glorifies war and nationalism- sung as part of worshipping the Prince of Peace. It is incongruous with the purpose of Christian worship at best and blasphemous at worst. Yet many love it because it is such a stirring and triumphant sounding song. Luckily, there is a better option which both maintains the tune and brings the song’s message more in line with Gospel truths.
Universal Imprisonment on Independence Day
American Independence Day, a day in which Americans are supposed to declare their liberation from an overweening British state that sought to turn them into servile prisoners in their own lands dawns this year with the American public facing mass imprisonment in their own states, cities, and homes. Convicted of no crime, facing no accusations, merely upon the declaration of those in power, tens of millions of Americans have been placed under house arrest and threatened with both life shattering fines and life ending violence if they disobey. If America ever needed a new declaration of liberation, today is that day.