We worked an election on Saturday. The only thing on our
ballot was a school district bond election (an astounding $1.76 billion). It won,
of course, with 70% of the votes. But only 4.6% of registered voters voted (10,499
for and 4,544 against). So I could talk about education, or property taxes, but I think I'll forego.
This was our first countywide election on a voting day
(early voting has always been countywide). Several voting places were combined,
and our alternate judge was an experienced judge and very good to work with. He
was an older black man, a retired police officer, and a faithful Catholic. We
had pleasant conversations with him.
It’s not surprising that a he’s part of the 90% of blacks
who vote Democrat. But, getting to know him, it’s hard to imagine he’ll be
happy voting for any of the pro-socialism candidates for President in their
primary.
We have so much in common with other religious people. I
hope at some point that translates into voting to protect our Constitution. The
Blexit movement is underway, but so far aiming mostly at younger voters.
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| Neal A. Maxwell image from here |
Anyway, I’m thinking about religion and freedom, and how
they interrelate, as I share some nuggets from my quote file today. This first
one is from Neal A. Maxwell, whose language is something I have always admired.
I’m currently reading his biography. Anyway, this is from a talk in 1978.
We are
now entering a period of incredible ironies. Let us cite but one of these
ironies which is yet in its subtle stages: we shall see in our time a maximum
if indirect effort made to establish irreligion as the state religion. It is
actually a new form of paganism that uses the carefully preserved and
cultivated freedoms of Western civilization to shrink freedom even as it
rejects the value essence of our rich Judeo-Christian heritage.
Brothers
and sisters, irreligion as the state religion would be the worst of all
combinations. Its orthodoxy would be insistent and its inquisitors inevitable.
Its paid ministry would be numerous beyond belief. Its Caesars would be
insufferably condescending. Its majorities—when faced with clear
alternatives—would make the Barabbas choice, as did a mob centuries ago when
Pilate confronted them with the need to decide.
Your
discipleship may see the time come when religious convictions are heavily
discounted. M. J. Sobran also observed, “A religious conviction is now a second-class
conviction, expected to step deferentially to the back of the secular bus, and
not to get uppity about it” (Human Life
Review, Summer 1978, p. 58). This new irreligious imperialism seeks to
disallow certain of people’s opinions simply because those opinions grow out of
religious convictions. Resistance to abortion will soon be seen as primitive.
Concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and
unenlightened.—Neal A. Maxwell, “Meeting the Challenges of Today,” October 1978
Religion and Liberty are the two great objects
of defensive war. Conjoined, they unite all the feelings, and call forth all
the energies, of man…. Religion and liberty are the meat and the drink of the
body politic. Withdraw one of them, and it languishes, consumes, and dies. If
indifference to either at any time becomes the prevailing character of a
people, one half of their motives to vigorous defense is lost, and the hopes of
their enemies are proportionally increased. Here, eminently, they are inseparable.
Without religion we may possibly retain the freedom of savages, bears, and
wolves; but not the freedom of New-England. If our religion were gone, our
state of society would perish with it; and nothing would be left, which would
be worth defending. —Timothy Dwight, President of Yale University, “The Duty of
Americans, at the Present Crisis,” July 4, 1798
No compact among men…
can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself,
that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand
against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by
the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other.—George Washington, draft
of First Inaugural Address, April 1798
Heaven knows the proper price to attach
to something so celestial as freedom.— Thomas Payne
It was through and by the power of God, that the fathers of
this country framed the Declaration of Independence, and also that great
palladium of human rights, the Constitution of the United States. There is
nothing of a bigoted, narrow-contracted feeling about that instrument; it is
broad and comprehensive.—John Taylor, The
Constitution Is an Inspired Document, p. 644
Facts are stubborn things;
and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our
passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.—John Adams[i],
1770
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| David O. McKay image from here |
If I
speak plainly, and in condemnation lay bare reprehensible practices and aims of
certain organizations, please do not think that I harbor ill-will or enmity in
my heart towards other United States citizens whose views on political policies
do not coincide with mine. But when acts and schemes are manifestly contrary to
the revealed word of the Lord, we feel justified in warning people against
them. We may be charitable and forbearing to the sinner, but must condemn the sin.—David
O. McKay, “Jesus’ Prayer for Unity,” General Conference, October 1939
I predict future
happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the
labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.—Thomas
Jefferson
The duty of a true patriot is to protect his
country from its government.—Thomas Payne
It has been fundamental to our way of life that charity
must be voluntary if it is to be charity. Compulsory benevolence is not
charity. Today’s egalitarians are using the federal government to redistribute
wealth in our society, not as a matter of voluntary charity, but as a matter of
right.—Ezra Taft Benson, This Nation
Shall Endure, p. 91
You cannot stop a decades-long march toward a
socialist and authoritarian state if the family breaks down. Those who say we
need to maintain a laser focus on government spending miss the forest for the
trees, or refuse to accept what the Founders embraced. If we balance the budget
and rein in government but do not rebuild and protect families, then the
popular will for government intervention will irresistibly grow over time.—Ken
Blackwell and Ken Klukowski, Resurgent:
How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America
Freedom and religion endure together or perish alone.—Mitt
Romney, “Faith in America” speech, December 6, 2007
The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is
not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and
public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If “Thou shalt not
covet” and “Thou shalt not steal” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be
made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made
free.—John Adams, “Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United
States,” 1787
Basing state
policy on relative measures devolves into covetousness.
—Bill Flax, “Don’t Like Handouts? Neither Does the Bible,” December 12, 2011
And as ’tis folly to suppose that princes will always be wise,
just and good, when we know that few have been able alone to bear the weight of
a government, or to resist the temptations to ill, that accompany an unlimited
power, it would be madness to presume they will for the future be free from
infirmities and vices....
If the public safety be provided, liberty and propriety
secured, justice administered, virtue encouraged, vice suppressed, and the true
interest of the nation advanced, the ends of government are
accomplished;--Algernon Sidney, Discourses
Concerning Government, pp. 319-320
Thus, the central problem of government, is a religious
one, and anyone who assumes he can form his political beliefs without
consulting his ethics, which have their basis in religious conviction, is
deceiving himself either about the true nature of government, or his moral
responsibility for its actions.—Elder H. Verlan Andersen, Many Are Called but Few Are Chosen
[i]
John Adams said this, in defense of British soldiers following the Boston Massacre.
However, it is also credited to Tobias George Smollett, who in turn was
translating a work, Gil Blas, from
French author Alain-René Lesage. The phrase may predate all of these.
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