[Ripliancum]

LDS Caucus thread. Please respect the designation. Today's post explores statements by Lorenzo Snow, 5th President the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. If you are a member of the LDS Caucus, please add statements pertaining to Pres. Snow's administration as you see fit that add to the discussion.

Thanks, Ripliancum.

[Ripliancum]

freedom ping

[taxcutisapayraise]

Hopefully, by reading “The Proper Role of Government” by Ezra Taft Benson, the wonderful Mormon community will remember what it means to be Mormon in respect to the relationship we have with the federal/state/local government entities.

E.T. Benson thankfully gives us yet another broad understanding of the term “statism.” A term that all freedom and liberty people should use often.

In the debate of ideas, the proper use of vocabulary is often times the key to success. “Statism” is just such a powerful word.

Excerpt from E.T. Benson's “The Proper Role of Government”:

THE NATURE OF LEGAL PLUNDER

“When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it – without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud – to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed!

“How is the legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime…” (THE LAW, p. 21, 26; P.P.N.S., p. 377)

As Bastiat observed, and as history has proven, each class or special interest group competes with the others to throw the lever of governmental power in their favor, or at least to immunize itself against the effects of a previous thrust. Labor gets a minimum wage, so agriculture seeks a price support. Consumers demand price controls, and industry gets protective tariffs. In the end, no one is much further ahead, and everyone suffers the burdens of a gigantic bureaucracy and a loss of personal freedom. With each group out to get its share of the spoils, such governments historically have mushroomed into total welfare states. Once the process begins, once the principle of the protective function of government gives way to the aggressive or redistribute function, then forces are set in motion that drive the nation toward totalitarianism. “It is impossible,” Bastiat correctly observed, “to introduce into society… a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.” (THE LAW, p. 12)

Link: http://www.latterdayconservative.com/articles/ezra-taft-benson/the-proper-role-of-government