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Promoting Measures to Maintain and Strengthen the Family

Posted by Connor on November 14th, 2012

In an October 1995 General Relief Society meeting, President Gordon B. Hinckley rose to the podium to deliver his remarks to the assembled women of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This address proved to be historic, standing out from prior and succeeding ones because this was when The Family: A Proclamation to the World was delivered.

Prior to reading this proclamation, President Hinckley explained its purpose:

With so much of sophistry that is passed off as truth, with so much of deception concerning standards and values, with so much of allurement and enticement to take on the slow stain of the world, we have felt to warn and forewarn. In furtherance of this we of the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles now issue a proclamation to the Church and to the world as a declaration and reaffirmation of standards, doctrines, and practices relative to the family which the prophets, seers, and revelators of this church have repeatedly stated throughout its history.

The proclamation was then read for the first time, offering the world a concise, bold, and unapologetic declaration of the principles and beliefs relative to marriage and family that God wishes his children to embrace. There is much worth pondering and implementing in the proclamation, and those of any faith (or no faith) would benefit from considering its counsel.

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Where the Political Battle Lines Lie

Posted by Connor on November 6th, 2012

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen people claim that “this is the most important election of our lifetimes.”

‘Twas ever thus, right? Each election reaches a fever pitch among entrenched partisan lines, with more people voting for their party’s nominee merely because he’s not the other guy. We’re told that calamity awaits should that guy get elected, and therefore we must fall in line and save the Republic by supporting the better option of the two.

Media attention, money, energy, activity—everybody’s focus and efforts seem to be drawn to the overflowing cesspool known as Washington, D.C. As government grows, so do the efforts of interested parties in wresting control of the jackpot in favor of their own faction. Power increasingly centralizes in the federal government, and so more and more people find themselves determined to either harness or hinder that power for their perceived benefit.

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How Latter-day Saints Can Create Zion

Posted by Connor on October 20th, 2012

I was asked to speak at a women’s retreat about Zion, and specifically, how a Zion society looks and operates in contrast to a Babylonian/Gadianton society. My prepared remarks follow below.

Throughout earth’s history, God has encouraged his children to rise to a heavenly standard—to create a “Zion” in which each member of society understood and adhered to God’s commandments. In the inspired records kept by prophets we see the term “Zion” being applied both to specific geographical groups of individuals, as well as disparate people figuratively connected by their common faith, wherever they might be. In all cases, it basically is a reference to God’s Saints—the pure in heart who actively build up God’s kingdom rather than their own.

A year prior to the church’s establishment in 1830, Joseph Smith received a revelation in which he was instructed to “seek to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion.” Before the church, came the cause—the reason why the church exists at all. This latter-day preoccupation with establishing God’s kingdom on the earth is not new to our dispensation. As Joseph observed, “The building up of Zion is a cause that has interested the people of God in every age; it is a theme upon which prophets, priests and kings have dwelt with peculiar delight; … it is left for us to see, participate in and help to roll forward the Latter-day glory [of Zion] … a work that is destined to bring about the destruction of the powers of darkness, the renovation of the earth, the glory of God, and the salvation of the human family.”

We have been commanded to establish Zion today. This requires, of course, that we understand what Zion is. To actually work towards Zion requires a knowledge deeper than a superficial Sunday School response. Yes, Zion is “the pure in heart.” Yes, Zion is the kingdom of God. But regurgitating these responses does not help us understand the specific actions and attitudes required to build up God’s kingdom, or build ourselves to the point of having pure hearts.

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Am I a Satan-Supporting Raving Lunatic Engaging in Priestcraft?

Posted by Connor on October 3rd, 2012

Holding political positions outside the mainstream of Mormondom, I’ve found it interesting to see how people react as they try (or, in most cases, don’t try) to understand how I can argue that the gospel of Jesus Christ harmonizes with libertarianism.

The last 48 hours serve as a microcosm of the responses I’ve received over the years as I’ve strengthened and advocated these views. Two days ago, for example, I was told that supporting the right to free speech of those whose speech I actually don’t agree with means that I support Satan’s plan against agency.

After calling out a woman for advocating the genocide of an entire nation, Libya, for the actions of an extreme few, and suggesting that her cry for mass slaughter of innocent people was an evil thing to do, I was called a “raving lunatic” by this woman yesterday morning.

Then, in the afternoon, I was called out for “priestcraft” when referenced in a question about my advocacy of Mormon libertarianism on BYU’s 100 Hour Board, a forum for BYU students to receive answers to their random questions within four days. Some of the answers, provided by anonymous, volunteer students, are laughably misguided.

But they deserve a response.

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Why an Obama Re-Election May Be Best for the Cause of Liberty

Posted by Connor on September 27th, 2012

In a previous post, I described why Ron Paul Republicans won’t be voting for Mitt Romney. The rebuttals received, whether on this blog, Facebook, via email, or in person, shared a common argument I’d like to explore. The argument goes as follows:

With a President Mitt Romney, libertarians at least have somebody in office who is somewhat agreeable to their positions, unlike Obama who is completely hostile to them. So why not support the candidate who is closer to your views, so that you can hopefully continue to pull him in your direction?

Those who read the Breitbart op-ed I referenced in my article will recognize this as the central argument made by its author. He writes:

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On Sullying Mormonism

Posted by Connor on September 25th, 2012

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said yesterday that he thinks Mitt Romney (a Republican and member of the same church) is “not the face of Mormonism,” and that Romney has “sullied” the faith.

Reid’s position came as an agreement to comments made by an author, Gregory A. Prince, whose recent op-ed urges readers to “not judge Mormonism on the basis of the Mitt Romney that was unveiled to the public this week.” Prince’s reference was to a video in which Romney is heard claiming that “there are 47 percent who are with [Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it—that that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them.”

The allegations in this statement are debatable, and ultimately irrelevant to the underlying claim, namely, that Romney’s belief in and publicizing of these allegations means that he has “sullied” the Mormon faith, “whose official mantra,” Prince writes, “is ‘to take care of the poor and needy throughout the world.’”

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Why Ron Paul Republicans Won’t Vote for Romney

Posted by Connor on September 24th, 2012

The Republican Party has become bipolar. This is the only logical conclusion to draw after reviewing its treatment of the swelling ranks of Ron Paul supporters who have long been dismissed as insignificant, yet who are now being courted by commentators hoping to prevent another Ross Perot-like split vote in November’s general election.

Throughout this presidential campaign cycle, media pundits and competing candidates have been quick to label Ron Paul and his supporters as unrepresentative of the GOP. “I don’t think Ron Paul represents the mainstream,” said Mitt Romney just days before the Iowa caucus in January. “I’m working harder than anyone to make sure he’s not the nominee.”

That statement would repeatedly prove itself true over the following eight months as Romney’s lawyers and surrogates worked multiple angles to unseat elected delegates who supported Ron Paul, change convention rules to minimize the influence of such delegates, and frustrate their goals in sparking any change or controversy. As if it couldn’t get any worse, Romney’s campaign and the RNC scripted the convention itself so that no mention of Paul’s delegate vote was made, and the result of an important vote was pre-determined to be read from the teleprompter by the chairman.

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Individual Liberty Requires Personal Responsibility

Posted by Connor on September 18th, 2012

The following is a magazine article I was asked to write for Young American Revolution. For more on this topic, see my forthcoming book, Latter-day Responsibility: Choosing Liberty Through Personal Accountability.

Liberty is one of the most used—but least understood—terms in modern political discourse. If you doubt this assertion, try asking random people on the street what it means. Most of the responses will likely be superficial and vague. Free speech, limited government, low taxes, gun rights, private property—these and a host of other common replies are not necessarily incorrect, though only capture a small part of what liberty truly is.

This general ignorance suggests a compelling need for educational initiatives, activism projects, and related efforts to thrust into the mainstream a concise and correct definition of liberty. French economist Frédéric Bastiat defined it as “the restricting of the law only to… punishing injustice.” Alternatively, Thomas Jefferson said it is “unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.”

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America: The Most Wicked Nation on Earth

Posted by Connor on September 14th, 2012

Who is more wicked: the murdering mobster who was raised in a life of crime and hardly knows otherwise, or the life-long Christian man who cheats on his wife? Is a man who was abused as a child and later in life beats his own children more wicked than the woman who has been taught all her life to love her neighbor, yet who harbors a deep animosity for others not like her?

Judged on their face, it is easy to determine which actions themselves are more wicked. Murder is worse than adultery, and abuse is clearly more offensive than animosity. But determining which of the actors are more wicked becomes more tricky, requires more context, and flirts with judgments that one should in many cases leave in God’s hand. But we’re told to judge righteous judgment; God wants us to observe and judge between contrasting choices and circumstances, in order to best determine our own.

God has said, “For of him unto whom much is given, much is required.” This passage of scripture is well known, to the point of it being easily repeated (but perhaps not sufficiently practiced) by most Americans. The verse continues, however, with a striking statement that helps us judge who in these examples may be more wicked.

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Abortion: A Property Rights Issue?

Posted by Connor on August 28th, 2012

The lives of millions of developing humans are terminated worldwide each year. In the United States alone, well over a million are killed on an annual basis. This extinguishing of life is a lucrative business, with nearly $1 billion generated each year as a result of the services related to ending human life.

The political hot potato that is abortion has long split Americans on opposite sides of the spectrum, with the “pro life” crowd demanding a halt to such institutionalized infanticide, and the “pro choice” crowd arguing that a woman can do whatever she wants with her body, including ending an “unwanted pregnancy.”

Where do libertarians find themselves in the national dialogue (or relative lack thereof) regarding this fundamental issue? Like the populace at large, libertarians are split on either side; depending on one’s determination of when life begins, and what rights the mother retains or surrenders as a result of conception, a libertarian can reach different conclusions.

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The Seductiveness of Sweetness and Light

Posted by Connor on August 17th, 2012

"As a people," President Ezra Taft Benson once said, "we love sweetness and light—especially sweetness." In these few words, the human condition is pathetically summarized.

Sure, people watch the so-called “news” and are bombarded with one bad story after another—information that is bitter and dark. And they tolerate it so long as it doesn’t affect their lives, so long as their status quo is left undisturbed. And a complicit media conglomerate is all too willing to exclude information that would suggest that their viewers were just as guilty as the crooks they saw on TV.

What President Benson was referring to was not the crimes and accidents that happen daily, but the conscious and consistent actions of individuals who should know better. He was referring to people not wanting to be called out for behaving in a way that they shouldn’t, ever anxious to obtain carnal security by believing that all is well—that no significant changes are needed in one’s life.

The apostle Paul encountered this same trend in his day. Counseling young Timothy, Paul observed that people would reject the truth, and “after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” In other words, the people only wanted to hear what they liked hearing, and therefore rejected those who said anything uncomfortable. “They shall turn away their ears from the truth,” wrote Paul, “and shall be turned unto fables.”

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Behold, A Straw Man!

Posted by Connor on August 3rd, 2012

I’ve been called many names and associated with many labels during my political advocacy and activism. One must develop thick skin in this business, of course. And most of the time, I let it slide and carry on. Recently being called “very confused and overzealous” by Paul Mero of the Sutherland Institute, however, merits a response.

First, some context. Two weeks ago, I wrote a post for Libertas Institute discussing our view on individual liberty. It was a response to a question from a visitor to our website, who used a couple quotes to determine what “flavor” of liberty we’re advocating for.

One of the quotes was from Lord Acton, and is very often used by Paul to bash libertarianism. On numerous occasions Paul has channeled Lord Acton to argue that liberty is “the right to do what you ought to do”—thus providing justification for the conservative desire to compel morality and responsibility when people allegedly aren’t doing what they “ought”.

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