Utah's Republic

Posts Tagged ‘Constitution’

This relatively short video is a reading of the Declaration of Independence as performed by a group of actors and actresses. Morgan Freeman starts things off by indicating that some record may show that Thomas Jefferson actually wanted the DOI performed and not merely read. That’s an interesting tidbit which led to this production.

This is mostly for those of you that are LDS, but of course, if you’re not, you’re still welcome to read it. :) The talk by Marion G. Romney I reference below, is one of the greatest sermons ever given exposing the evils of socialism and how it destroys the agency and freedom of man. It contains an excellent lesson in the background of socialism and the extreme importance of the U.S. Constitution. I believe all people would be benefited by reading it regardless of religious preference.

A couple weeks ago when my op-ed reply to Brian Jackson appeared in the Deseret News, someone posting under the name “LDS Liberal” responded to someone with this statement advocating socialism:

“OK
Do you live in a Family?
City of Enoch was what?
1st Century Christians practiced what?
Nephites/Lamanites had what in common?
The problem I see is that Religion actually teaches Socialism.
Do unto others….
Give to the poor and the needy.
etc., etc., etc.
Too bad we can’t recognize Religion and the Bible as History — you’d really blow a gasket.”

I tried to post a comment but it never got to the board. What I posted was essentially this.

First of all, these 3 scriptural societies did not practice socialism, they practiced what was called the United Order and it was fundamentally different from socialism. How important is this distinction? So important, that at the 1966 April General Conference of the LDS church, Elder Marion G. Romney of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles started his talk on this subject by saying this:

“What I am going to give you now is a statement I have prepared in answer to the question, “Is Socialism the United Order?” Some of you may have already heard it. This is the first time I have ever attempted to give a talk a second time. My excuse is that the Brethren have asked me to give this talk here tonight.”

Elder Romney’s talk is much longer than a normal conference talk which also shows the high value the leadership of the church placed on ensuring these doctrines were taught. I am going to post a pdf of his talk here with my own highlighting for those that want to just skim it, but I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing. One relevant quote I found in the talk is:

“We have much to do, and fortunately for us the Lord has definitely prescribed the course we should follow with respect to socialism and the United Order.

Constitution God-inspired

He has told us that in preparation for the restoration of the gospel, he himself established the Constitution of the United States, and he has plainly told us why he established it. I hope I can get this point over to you. He said he established the Constitution to preserve to men their free agency, because the whole gospel of Jesus Christ presupposes man’s untrammeled exercise of free agency.”

…[quotes scriptures]…

“These scriptures declare the Constitution to be a divine document.”

There you go folks, the official position of the LDS church is that the U.S. Constitution is a divine document.

Oh, and as for the comment from “LDS Liberal” about families practicing socialism, that would mean nobody in the family has any private property. Try to tell your teenager that his iPod really belongs to everyone. :)

“Socialism is not the United Order” by Marion G Romney (click to open PDF, right-click to save PDF to your desktop)

One of my favorite speakers is Dr. Rufus Fears. I’ve listened to a few of his lectures through The Teaching Company which produces some wonderful material. If you get on their email list you can wait for a 70% off sale and pick up some of the courses pretty cheap. Anyway, this lecture by Dr. Fears is really wonderful and I encourage you to listen to the parts at lunch or sometime.

There are 7 parts to this speech, but half of it is Q&A which has some good material but I’ll just post the speech below.

Part 1

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Judge Napolitano gave this great speech at a Campaign for Liberty function. Watch this third part and if you’re not motivated to get involved to save this country, I don’t know why you’re on this website wasting your time.

I received an email about a week ago from a Susan Schnell concerning a link Alpine School District (ASD) had put on their website Mission Statement page in an effort to bolster their position that America is a Democracy. By directly linking to an outside site, they gave tacit approval and endorsement of everything on that site, but especially the page they linked to.

After Susan’s email started to circulate, ASD pulled the link. Read below and you’ll find out why.You’ll also wonder how on earth they thought the original page they linked to was acceptable just by itself. I filed a GRAMA request with the district on 2/18/10 for more information which will be published here when we have the answers. Please sign the petition on this site (www.UtahsRepublic.org) to be notified as things progress and to ask the state to return us to constitutional education in the tradition of our Founding Fathers.

Here is Susan’s email:

WARNING TO ALL ALPINE SCHOOL DISTRICT PARENTS

I am a parent of 4 children in Alpine School District (ASD) in Utah and I just found out some alarming things that our district is promoting. Please take the time to read this as we need to come together as a community to fix a monumental problem which has crept into our local district. Then please go to http://www.utahsrepublic.org to learn more about this issue and what we can do to solve it. School board elections are coming up soon and we can fix this if we all work together quickly.

Many are aware that our country’s leaders are trying to transform this nation into democratic socialism. You already know that one of their main techniques is to indoctrinate school children around the nation into gradually believing Progressive ideology and move away from our great Constitutional heritage. I moved here in the heart of a conservative city and state from California hoping for a better education and environment for my children. However, I was shocked to find out recently that our own Alpine School District has been aligning itself with people who believe that we are NOT a great God-inspired Republic. They are teaching that our Founding Fathers were wrong in establishing a Republic, that the Constitution was set up by wealthy elitists who only wanted gain for themselves and that we should transform our Republic nation into a social and political Democracy by teaching this false doctrine to our children. They even went as far as linking their Mission Statement page with a California Green Party candidate who believes Jesus is a vampire. READ ON….

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