90’s Purge Of Conservatives In The Church

On November 4th, Ben appeared on the Last Dispensation podcast to discuss, among other things, the 90’s purge of conservatives in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You can watch the interview below, or listen on our podcast here.

The Salt Lake Tribune did a report on the “purge” in 1992, which has now received its own “purge” from their website but has been preserved here, “It’s Judgment Day for Far Right: LDS Church Purges Survivalists”

The Associate Press did their own report that has also been “purged” from their website but can be found on the “Wayback Machine” here, “Ultraconservatives Say Church is Purging Them”

You can read a transcript of the interview at the bottom of this page.

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Benson was was was pretty conservative then yeah he was he was a constitutionalist and believed that there were conspiracies to overthrow the government yeah he recommended a general conference to read Cleon Scaldins book the naked communist and so yeah definitely believe that these things were were a major threat but he was also a people pleaser and that caused problems if you read there’s a new biography out about David O.
McKay and and he but basic like who is talking to him last is kind of like where he would go this isn’t a criticism don’t get me wrong if you say you know oh you know this happened under this administration like whoa you’re talking about about the brethren but you can people it’s popular almost to talk about about bringing young or even as your tap Benson and so I think people’s you know often don’t have a double
standard when it comes to that that idea but I talked to Joel Scaldins I want to know what your opinions are on this yeah says it kind of stopped with Gordon B. Hinckley do you did you feel that yourself um well it started it started before I started a little before that so you have the 90s purge which happened at during the Benson administration and so there was a list that some people that were close said it
came from one of the 12 but the news focused on one of the 70s that was the one going out to the local communities and giving a list of things that state presidents should ask members about to see if they should be excommunicated to see if they should be disfellowshipped what should be going on so so you gave this list of things so on this list of things that you would bring in a member of your local ward to
would be are you Vincent too much even though he was the president of the church at the time Ben McClintock has strong roots in the Liberty movement.
Yeah, is this your website tree of Liberty Society? Dot -com. Yep. Okay tree of Liberty Society dot -com and you are the you you are the founder Mm -hmm.
You are the founder of tree of Liberty Society Correct as well as a member has strong roots in the Liberty movement He is the founder as well as membership coordinator and investigative reporter for tree of Liberty Society prior to that He was a coordinator for the John Birch Society and co -founder of defending Utah Ben has been featured in USA Today Fox News and many other regional Newspapers throughout the West.
He is a popular guest and regularly appears on radio programs like the Nationally syndicated Kate that dally is that dally or daily dally?
I’m a California boy I’m in California. So I think she’s regional or she’s Idaho, Utah girl, right? Well, she she’s based out of southern Utah,
but she’s actually all over the United States right now. Oh, oh wait She’s on Alex Jones occasion. She’s on Alex Jones. She’s on the new American all that stuff. I I just had Joel Scowson on Who he also goes on Alex Jones?
Okay, so it’s Kate dally. Yeah, okay Ben also recently co -produced the popular documentary The 12th article of faith must Christians obey the government among many others Which can be viewed here on the tree of Liberty website with over 15 years of experience in your original research writing speaking and Orgas organizational leadership Ben strives to bring a strong foundation and understanding of freedom to Tree of Liberty
Society and all of its members. Welcome, Ben. I’m thankful to have you here. I’ve been hearing a lot about you from various people,
voices, and I have many questions. My brain is gonna explode right now because I have so many questions, but let’s just slow it down and take this one,
let’s incrementally make our way into it. Okay, so I’m looking at your website. I’m thinking, the first thing that comes to my mind is let’s kind of talk about the church a little bit and where,
why, and a lot of them, I’ve had this question a lot, so I’m gonna ask it for my listeners and viewers by proxy.
Okay. Why do we not hear things like we did during the time of Ezra Tapp -Benson? Why, what, I’ve heard of something called the purging,
I hear things about maybe the late ’80s, early ’90s, when it stopped, did it stop with Gordon B. Hinckley? Why don’t we hear things about our Ezra Tapp,
like Ezra Tapp -Benson used to speak of when he was, I don’t think he was actually a member of the John Birch Society, but he was, but he loved the John Birch Society,
so anyway, why don’t we hear things like that anymore? That’s, man, I can already tell we’re gonna have a lot of fun today. – I’ve already started. (laughing) – So, you know, speaking of Ezra Tapp -Benson,
he gave a talk called Not Commanded in All Things, where he gave the example of Samuel from the Old Testament, and when ancient Israel would demand a king,
they wanted a king just like everybody else, and Samuel said, you know what? The Lord said, this is what’s gonna happen, and they kept on asking for it, asking for it, and the Lord said, you know what? You know, they’ve rejected me,
Samuel, not you, so give them what they want, And that’s just the way it’s going to be. And so in that talk, after getting that example, Azertab Benson talked about family and evenings like, Hey guys, you know,
we should have known to do to teach your family at home, but we weren’t doing it. So just based on the scriptures, but we weren’t doing it. So the Lord came out with a program, the FHE program. And,
you know, the more and more that the Lord has to say it and we don’t do it, eventually the Lord drops the matter and lets us suffer the consequences. So I think that’s a major part of it because,
you know, we can see that throughout the scriptures and even in this dispensation of the United Order, where in DNC 105, it says this is the saints weren’t doing their job. And so we were given the lower law of tithing.
And so when we reject something as a people, and I think that that’s a fair thing to say is because even when, you know, when he was present, the church, when he was a member of the column, the 12, there were people all throughout and all levels of the church that would complain.
I’ve talked to people that they grew up in very liberal, liberal households. And when they went to BYU, this is during the time when Azertab Benson was the president of the church, their parents would tell them,
don’t go to Tuesday devotional if President Benson’s talking. And so, you know, you have the people not not doing what they’re supposed to and fighting against it in a lot of different ways.
And so I think the Lord gives us the leaders and the instructions that we’re worthy of. And so that’s my opinion of why we maybe don’t hear that anymore. It’s funny you say that because I grew up in California,
but I was born and raised in the church. Yeah. Is that something that you think was going on primarily in Utah and Idaho? Or was it more transparent there?
Then we would have seen here in what we what you guys call the mission field. I grew up in Northern California. Oh, OK, OK. So you know what I’m talking about? Is that? Yeah.
I feel like we were kind of sheltered, right? Yes. Yes. Well, out here, we have the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have the church in California. We don’t have the culture.
Utah and Idaho have the culture and the church, which is different. And that’s not the first time I’ve heard that about Ezra Tapinson. It’s funny because to some of us,
he was like one of our favorite prophets along with Spencer W. Kimball, the miracle of forgiveness. Some of us embrace that.
I’m a Gen Xer. You probably are too. And we embrace those principles. When I read the miracle of forgiveness as a teenager, I embraced those conservative values and that fear of God,
not fear of, but the respect for God and how he loves me, but he wants me to repent. Otherwise, I’m not going to live with him someday. That’s right. Yes, it was hardcore.
The gospel of Jesus Christ, but it was also done in love. People didn’t grow up back then, don’t know that. That’s interesting you say that. So when did that start to change?
Some people say Ezra Tapinson, right when he became prophet, he stopped talking about the John Birch Society. He stopped giving talks like that he gave in a general conference where he’s recommending Gary Allen’s “None Dare Call It a Spiracy.” Were there arguments and do you think that there were major disagreements amongst the brethren?
And then all of a sudden, we just kind of stopped talking about that. When did that happen? Well, that definitely goes back to if you read even Ezra Tapinson’s writings when he first was was called to the quorum of the 12,
he wasn’t of this, you know, he had some more bigger government tendencies than he did later on. And then he served a mission, you know, was sent to Europe the first time and came back and really did a 180.
And him and H. Berlin Anderson, the author of some of the books he recommended a general conference like many are called, but if you were chosen, the great and bombable church, the devil, those types of books, they became great friends.
And he helped, you know, Anderson helped Benson write the proper role of government. And so he started to make these changes. And so one of his staunchest critics amongst the brethren was Hubey Brown.
Hubey Brown and Ezra Tabbenzin did not like each other. I’ve talked with family members of people that were of his of Benson’s and others that were really close to that and reading the journals of one of Benson’s sons and things like that did not did not get along.
And in fact, it was when the 1960s early 60s, when David McCay was in the hospital, Hubey Brown,
and I think it was Tanner was acting as the first presidency, sends out a letter to the church telling them that they can’t be, you know, good members and the church and members of the John Burt society. And so I’ve heard David McCay sends Benson to Temple Square to the assembly hall to give a talk defending the John Burt society.
And so, like you said, he’s never remembered, but his wife was and he says me and my wife are one. So that’s kind of one of his things that he would say. And so that disagreement among the brethren,
I think, you know, started going from the 1950s, early 60s, at least that we have record of. So if you read some of the biographies of David McCay and Ezra Tabbenzin, you know,
or even his own talks where he would, he would say that, you know, I don’t, I’m okay with talking about Jesus, you know, I can talk about faith and repentance, but the president of the church told me to talk about the constitution told me to talk about see your combinations told me to talk.
So I’m doing this on assignment, you know, I’m cool with talking about other stuff. And so people would think that oh that he’s just harping on it.
No, he was doing it on assignment. And then moving up to when he was president of the church, right? He gave the talk. I testify, which was his last public talk that he gave. And where he says,
I testify that this conspiracy is stronger than it’s ever been before. The world is like, oh, Paris, Roica, the Soviet Union’s falling. Isn’t this great? That you get to see is like, things are getting worse, bro. You know,
this is this is worse than it’s ever been. And it’s not what we’re what we’re being told in the public. And so there are rumors that he was, you know, mentally or physically incapacitated,
right, right? Other talks that he wrote and had Gordon Hinckley would read for him. And his son read would say that, well, he my dad’s fine.
He’s just feels like he’s he said his piece and the saints can have what they’ve decided to to have. I’m moving on, folks. Yeah,
exactly. Yeah. That’s interesting. So David O. McKay was was was pretty conservative then. Yeah, he was he was a constitutionalist and believed that there were conspiracies to overthrow the government.
Yeah, he recommended a general conference to read Cleon Scaldon’s book The Naked Communist. And so yeah, definitely believe that these things were were a major threat. But he was also a people pleaser and that caused problems.
If you read, there’s a new biography out about David O. McKay and he would basically like who was talking to him last is kind of like where he would go.
This isn’t a criticism. Don’t get me wrong. He just he he really done didn’t he wanted to avoid contention. He was very friendly. Everybody loved him. He could say, you know, some of the most bold things,
but because he was just the way he came across, everybody loved him. And so he just would be a people pleaser. And so when he would come in,
he’s like, OK, I’ll go after and then Benson would come in. And it was just like this this tug of war. But, you know, people pulling McKay every direction. Right. Right.
Before we go on, I want to show people your website here. Yeah. So this is the Tree of Liberty website. Anything you want me to navigate through and for a second?
Yeah. So if you go to the top, you can see the no. Well, just scroll up to the top of the page. And you can see, oh, just go back to home. Sorry. OK, sure. Sure.
Didn’t realize what page you’re on. OK, so here are newest articles. Also, every single Monday night are activist members. We do a live training every Monday evening after family home evening.
And the kids are in bed and then it’s recorded. And so members can watch it afterwards. And then we do lots of different articles that help people understand key principles. What’s, you know, why is this wrong?
The founding fathers were really concerned about, you know, it’s not really about taxation without representation. There’s a lot more. I mean, if you look at the Declaration of Independence, there’s a lot more issues that they had than just taxation.
And so they wanted to help the people understand key principles. And so we talk a lot about principles that are or lesser known principles of the founding era and of civilizations that have gained lost liberty and that built liberty from from nothing.
And so not only, you know, I I don’t like to just say, oh, this is the hottest thing on the news. What’s going on in Gaza? What’s going on in DC? You know,
I want people to understand why that’s a bad thing or why that’s a good thing. And so that way, when they’re watching the news themselves, they don’t have to turn on me or anybody else to know what’s going on and why it’s going on and why we should care or don’t care.
Why is it a distraction? And so I focus a lot on principles. And then if there’s something big that I think needs to be addressed that’s going on to show, like, here’s that principle and application.
Then we’ll focus on that. And so we’ll do that with regular articles. And then we have a Learn section. If you click on that, we have a twice a month book club.
And so the one we’re going to be, and so right here in the Learn section is we have six, we have nine different topics that you just go through. We start off with natural law because that’s what the Declaration of Independence starts with.
Wow, this is amazing. And then that leads you to the proper government and the Constitution. And so if you go through these things, they’re videos produced by us or by other people that I feel that are principled,
audio downloads, PDFs that you can read for free, just through all those topics. So that way, you’ve gone through that, you’re like, man, okay, I’ve got the base, right? And then every other week on our website,
we just started, we just finished our second class. If you go to the events and classes page, we have what’s called the extremist liberty boot camp, right? Because just like with Christians,
that was a derogatory word back in the early days of the ancient church. And Mormon was a derogatory term in the early days of the restoration. And now they like to call you an extremist because you believe in government not being tyrannical.
And so we’re just like, okay, we’ll own that term. Go ahead. That’s fine. And so we, every other week live for free, you can join us on a Friday night at seven o ‘clock,
that’s mountain time. And, and then you can type into the chat, any questions you might have, and things that we can interact, you know, we can reach more people than we can, you know,
one on one, it’s cool because you’re just really building relationships. But you can also reach more people if you do it online. And so we like to do a mix, we do some in person stuff, we do some online stuff to try and and reach everybody and so we like to provide a lot of tools and then you go and our membership portal that that we have if you’re a member you log in and we have a ton of different um it just
doesn’t thank you that on a different page membership set well you have to be logged in so oh okay right right that’s where you log in no down here at the bottom you say member portal the bottom sorry sorry so that’s where you would go and we’ve got just scans of like original documents I’ve spent um you know combined years inside state archives church archives university archives and I scan those and I and I put in
just hard to find documents you can’t find on the internet except for you know what I’ve been able to access and get them on there and just some and then the access to our previous trainings all that kind of stuff and so um just we like to provide you with tools because this isn’t like hey you know hey Ben save my freedom for me I’m like no no no you’re right responsible for your freedom let’s do it together
let’s be strong together I’m gonna work and get you the tools and the understanding that you need and then we can work together to to at least have liberty in our own communities absolutely and so we’ve got three different tiers yeah of membership right and then we just say you know like hey you just want to throw us some bucks you know a couple bucks that’s totally cool you know that there’s some thank you stuff
there but these are just the suggested ones but you know if somebody is just we don’t want people to be like financially stressed because they’re helping out the cause of liberty but also recognize the founding fathers said that they sacrifice that their lives their fortunes and their sacred honor and so these things do take resources and so if you’re people are able to you know we want people to kind of show that
they’re they’re serious about the cause definitely um I’m glad that you that we did this because you don’t find very many platforms like this that can educate you,
especially this area here is really nowhere did it go. Learn. Yeah. The learn amazing stuff here, man.
I mean, this is. It’s 20 years of. Right, right. Questions that people have and it’s like taking an individual course.
Yeah. And it’s amazing on on those questions. Thank you so much. So I will leave the links folks to all of this. And. And is there anything else about the website you want to share?
I mean, just you can go to our, we got the podcast to go TV radio and you can see where you can listen. Because of the way censorship works, you know, we’re just like, Hey, we’re putting everything on the website. We’re not really doing.
We have backup stuff and all the different. Video and audio formats, but recognizing that that could stop at any time. And so we encourage people to make sure that they are checking out the website physically.
So that way there’s a version of the video up, you know, no matter what you’re looking for. And. And that way you’re not, you know, losing track. So make sure you’re subscribing to the either the text alerts or the emails.
And make sure you’re not good. It’s not going to your junk mail. So you can make sure to get caught up to date and not have the memory hole. Yeah, go after you. That’s Tree of Liberty Society folks,
I believe the link. Thank you so much. Okay, then back to the program. Back to the interesting stuff. No, that is interesting. I know, I love it too, but I’m a nerd.
A lot more than what we’re talking about. Yeah. And then I have some questions after I stop recording. I want to ask you some about website building because I’m building right now. Okay. Just basically a video hosting because people censor.
That’s what I want to ask. Yep. Okay. So one of the things I know you talk about is, so we’ve been talking about Ezra Tapp -Bentz and we talking about when that stopped.
I talked to Joel Scousen. I want to know what your opinions are on this. Yeah. He says it kind of stopped with Gordon B. Hinckley. Do you, did you feel that yourself? Do you?
Well, it started, it started before, I started a little before that. So you have the nineties purge, which happened during the Benson administration. And so there was a list that some people that were close said it came from one of the 12,
but the news focused on one of the 70s. That was the one going out to the local communities. And giving a list of things that state presidents should ask members about to see if they should be excommunicated to see if they should be disfellowshipped.
What should be going on. So some of those things on that list is, and I appreciate you bringing this up. I’ve talked about this on other podcasts and just haven’t done a show on it specifically. And let me interject real quick.
Just to let you know, brothers and sisters, Ben and I have a testimony of the gospel. Jesus Christ. We believe in following the prophet. We sustain the 15 men.
So we’re not saying anything negative about the brethren. What we’re doing is saying where the narrative changed as far as the opinions, because prophets can have opinions.
They’re not born in cultural vacuums. So they do have opinions and they do go by what they feel is right sometimes and might not agree with with other prophets and apostles.
They disagree. They say they come. They don’t come to a consensus, but they, they all feel the Holy Ghost on a certain issue, but they come into a room months before maybe they agree on a certain policy or an issue in complete disarray and disagreement.
disagreement on things. So we’re not saying that, but what we are saying is that that sometimes prophets and apostles have preconceived ideas,
right? But to be more mature in our testimonies because it’s funny how if you say, you know, oh, you know, this happened under this administration, you’re like,
well, you’re talking about about the brethren, but you can people. It’s popular almost to talk about about bringing young or even as you tap Benson. And so I think people’s, you know, often have a double standard when it comes to that that idea of it.
But anyway, go ahead, you were. Yeah. Okay. So the purge so. So you gave us this list of things. So on this list of things that you would bring in a member of your local ward to would be,
are you homeschooling? Are you do you have too much food storage, whatever that means? You know, are you focused on the teachings as of as or tap Benson too much,
even though he was the president of the church at the time? Are you a member of the John Burt society? And so those were questions. And so I, I know, I know several people that some of them,
especially because it was the 90s and they were adults at the time. They, some of them have passed on and some of them are just our parent, my parents age. And so they’re, they’re getting up there. And so they,
you know, I know people that got excommunicated because they were homeschooling. I know people that were these are police officers going in. No, no, no, no. So like your area authority, 70 would go into a stake president and say,
these are questions you need to ask your members that you notice. And even though it was profit at the time, they’re doing this. Correct. That is strange. Yeah, it’s totally sorry.
That’s strange. Because we don’t. I mean, I went on a mission to Salt Lake City. That’s where I serve my mission. Hey, there you go. And it was from 92 to 94. And Ezra Tapp Benson was sick at the time,
but he was alive. Right. And I was on First Avenue. My first, my second area was the church office building. Ward, the Eagle Gate. Oh,
wow. And he was in the Eagle Gate Apartments right up there and we were downstairs. So, had no clue that was going on. So, basically what you’re saying is when he was out of it for a while, he was sick for like almost a decade,
or maybe five years, I don’t know. Yeah. And so this is going on. It was not in public. Let’s say that. Okay. So, so the brethren are, there’s a, there’s a paradigm shift happening.
But yeah. And so there, the some, what we know, what was reported in the media, I’ll say it that way, is that an area authority was doing this.
And so, there were people that were again, XMK for homeschooling, people that were, I know people that were disfellowshipped. They couldn’t take the sacrament and they couldn’t use their priesthood,
because they were members of the John Birch Society. So, it kind of depended on the local leader on how far he would take it, you know, or if he would just say, hey, be careful. There’s a lot of words still,
especially like in Salt Lake, that if you are involved in, you know, more liberty minded things that you will not receive a calling. You know, they might not, you know, ruffle some feathers and have discipline,
but some of those ideas have still kind of laid over my parents, my grandparents, even they lived in the Bay Area, California, and they, when I joined the John Birch Society, they were worried I was going to get X communicated for it.
So, I mean, it lasted a long time and it wasn’t just in Utah that it lasted a long time. It was several, you know, people all over the place had those feelings. I lived in Arizona for a few years and they said that membership in the John Birch Society leads to apostasy.
And so, and so, you have that mentality still kind of lingering on even to this day. And so, and then it starts to really after his death,
the things that he warned about, and the things that he wouldn’t involve the church members in, in, you start to see a shift. And so,
you know, was it because of the members? Was it because of their personal opinions, all that kind of stuff? That’s, you know, we report you to side type of situation. – That’s,
that is amazing because, you know, being in my early 20s on the mission and just growing up in the church and even as an early adult, we don’t see all that.
We don’t know all that. The regular lay members of the church. – I didn’t have a clue. I mean, at that early time, I guess I’m a little bit young. I didn’t serve my mission until the late 90s. And so,
but yeah, I mean, like Benson, right? Like even Benson himself, I was still pretty young when he was as the president of the church. And like, I was just like, oh, I remember a TV show called Benson. I was, you know, that’s kind of the association that I had with the name.
– Right, right. – It wasn’t until, you know, I get married that I start digging into, oh my goodness. These are, I just love the teachings of Brigham Young. And I love these books by Ezra Tad Benson and all these things to start, you know,
clicking in my head. – I feel the Holy Ghost when Brigham Young speaks. – Absolutely. – I feel the Holy Ghost when Ezra Tappins. I feel the Holy Ghost in all the prophets. Now,
let me ask you this. Some people say, well, yes, it’s served a purpose at one time, that way of thinking, you know, constitutional, hanging by a thread,
we need to save America. But then once the church started becoming more global, and once it, you know where I’m going with this, once we came, you know,
we used to be a Utah church, then it went to, we were a United States church, and then it, now we’re a world church. So we had to change. It was the Lord inspiring new prophets to say something different.
In other words, do we need to be in lockstep with the powers that be, with the Gadianton robbers, I guess, of the world, so that we can build temples,
so that we can gather Israel, pull out of government. We’re not in it anymore. We’re not speaking against the government because that could destroy us.
That could slow us down. You know, we don’t want them on our back. You know what I’m saying? Oh, I hear it. I hear you. You’re right. And what’s the other thing that,
you know, that we’re at fourth quarter football going on here, you know, it’s the last. It’s the ending last inning. I don’t watch sports.
That’s not an ending. Or, you know, you’re in the last 10 seconds of the last quarter, right? Am I getting football and baseball? You know,
it’s the end and the coach is like, Hey, forget this and that. Just go, Ronnie, you’re going to grab the ball and just get it done. Yeah, get her done. What do you think about that? I think that’s anti -scripture and it’s unprincipled.
All right. And, you know, here’s a here’s a little self -same shameless plug. Here’s my volume one of Invasion. No, no, actually, I show how that happened in Utah. And it was because of a mixture of the members demanding that we adopt the ways of the world and then,
of course, the pressure from the outside world that I believe again, especially you can really say that during that time because we were receiving the warnings like Samuel did. If you do this,
this is the problem. This is what’s going to happen because of it. And the members said, you know, we don’t care. Just just make us make it so the government leaves us alone. Come on. And so you have people conspiring behind the scenes to be able to move things in a certain direction.
And basically, you know, after the Lord had said several times, no, no, no, he’s like, here you go, guys. And so, you know, Daniel, he didn’t say, you know, I’m just going to go pray in the inside.
I’m going to have a prayer in my heart. You can’t stop me, Nebuchadnezzar. You know, I’m just going to pray in my heart. No, what did he do? He opened the windows and prayed out loud so everyone could hear him and took the consequence.
He didn’t say, well, if I go to jail, then I’m not going to be able to preach the word and, you know, the word of God is not going to be able to continue. No, throughout the scriptures, from the Old Testament to the New Testament to the Doctrine and Covenants in the Book of Mormon,
it was the servants of God, whether they were the prophet or just, you know, servants of God, to stand up for what was right. And you’d have Daniel being protected in the lion’s den.
You’d have Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego being protecting the furnace. You had Abednego being protected until his job was done and then he got burnt. And he says, you know, to sacrifice for my Lord is an honor.
And so it was because I believe the evidence shows that the saints rejected that aspect of building the literal kingdom of God and wanted to make peace with Babylon so that they could not be persecuted anymore.
And so today we’re receiving the results, the consequences of that. Interesting. Yeah, that’s very interesting. So I also,
so that kind of segwayed into that book then. So this was perfect. I mean, I was inspired maybe. I don’t know. That’s neat.
Where do we find your book? Are we’re going to leave the link to that? What’s it called again? Yeah, the easiest way to get to invasionbook .com. But if you hold it up again, society .com, and click on the link for invasion, either way,
can you hold it up again? Yeah, this is volume one, which kind of shows you how we got to the situation we’re in. How how did we become this independent nation and debunking a lot of the stuff?
Oh, we may when we came to Utah, we were just dying to become a state in the union again. No, no. When we came here, we were maining to build the literal kingdom of God as prophesied by Daniel.
It was a different government. It was a political government. And it wasn’t, you know, and then we get in and talks about it goes into the invasion and then how you had people like the Gobiites who were members of the church,
who was a member. Well, William Gobi was a member of the church. Convert from England was a follower of the socialist Robert Owen, who was trained by the Satanist,
Madame Levotsky, and came here and worked with the people in the community, the influential opinion holders in the community, to get them to say, “Hey, you know, we’re not doing this economic order of Zion,
the order of Enoch. We’re not doing that anymore. We’re not doing this political kingdom of God stuff. We are going to become metropolitan. We are going to become like the world. And we’re going to be,
and that’s going to make us rich. And it’s going to get the government to leave us alone.” Right. So what you’re saying is we, it’s not that this, this is still the kingdom of heaven. This is still the kingdom.
This is still the church. It’s led directly by Jesus Christ. However, he, he pulls back certain things according to the desires of his children.
So linking the church and the kingdom of God is a 20th century changing of what Joseph Smith, in 1843, we have, so for a long time we didn’t have this, but in 2016,
the church and the Joseph Smith papers released the Council of Fifty Minutes. The Council of Fifty was the political arm of the kingdom of God. And so Joseph Smith said that the kingdom of God and all the early brethren up to basically,
and it involved members and non -members. In the Council of Fifty, correct? Yeah. And so they said that the kingdom of God was one organization and the church of God was another organization. So they are,
according to, you know, the Prophet of the Restoration, these are not the same organization. They are two with two very distinct and separate jobs. And so, you know, so that’s what was established there is something that they were trying to,
and they were working on doing in Utah until the members really just were like, you know, we’re done with that. We’re just gonna be a church now and we’re just gonna talk about the scriptures and, you know,
forget about what Daniel saw. – Right, okay. This is all interesting stuff. Now, and I piecemeal this in my head and in my heart. – Yeah. – I still pray about these things.
– Absolutely. – And there are things I agree with that you said there are some things I still have to further research and that’s the cool thing about your website.
– Yep. – Now, let’s go from that. How much time do you have? – I’m here for you. Let’s go into some world stuff real quick.
Well, I saw you, I’m not gonna jump the gun on this. Well, let me start here. Some say, as far as, let’s say, I gotta be careful, I’m on YouTube too,
but. – Yeah. – I’m on Rumble, but I don’t like the video quality on Rumble. But anyway. – Yeah, we’ll be careful of the words we use. Maybe we’ll say it a little bit differently,
but people will know what we mean. I don’t know. – Well, I’m just gonna say it ’cause I’ve been able to get away so far with it a little bit. I think I’ve been shadow banned a couple of times on certain things, but that’s okay. Okay, you hear people say when they’re always looking at the top of this pyramid in their brains,
right? It’s the council on foreign relations. No, it’s the Jesuits. – Right. – No, it’s the Masons, the Scottish Rite sect of Freemasonry knows the royal family.
What are you talking about? It’s the royal family. No, it’s the Rothschilds. It’s the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers. It’s Zionist Jews. And then it goes on.
What did I leave out? – Shape shifting lizard people. – Yeah, or the United Nations or the European Union. It goes on and on.
There is no top thing, is there? Is this just a bunch of wicked people that rub each other, rub elbows with each other? – So I think, I encourage everyone to really study either chapter eight for the answer to that question.
Um, this is, you know, Satan has his counterfeits. And so Satan would be like, so he’s like Jesus, you know, he runs, you know, Jesus runs his church and Satan runs his.
And so that’s why on the cover of our book, we have this Leviathan where you have all of these different tentacles that you brought up. And you have, you know,
basically, you know, what, who is his earthly mouthpiece? That’s something that I think that would be speculation, right? I like to stick in conspiracy fact. What do we know?
And so that we do know that some of those things that you brought up, like the Rothschilds or the Council on Foreign Relations or the Rockefellers, right? David Rockefeller’s own biography admitted that he was part of the conspiracy to undermine the independence of the United States.
That’s his own autobiography. It’s not some theory that, you know, somebody came up with. It’s what he said. And so, and you look at the people that founded the Council on Foreign Relations and the people behind that.
And so you have a lot of this overlap where you have the same people that are a part of a lot of these organizations that are known as being conspirator organizations. And so if people think they’re like,
well, if we just expose one of them, they’re hacking at the arm and not going after the head. I mean, so it’s important to understand the tentacles so that we’re not fooled by,
you know, any of Satan’s, you know, tools to get us to go along with this program or to not fight against him. Because, you know, that’s one of his top things is to get us out of the battle by making up excuses the last days.
Nothing you can do about it. It’s all prophesied, you know, those types of excuses of why we shouldn’t be involved. And so it’s important for us to know the tentacles, but it’s important for us to know where those tentacles go back to.
It’s Satan. Satan. These guys, when we think that, okay, we’re just going to go to the mafia and if you just help them, you know, understand things better, they just don’t understand the Constitution. If we just, you know,
if we could just show them the Constitution, these mafia guys would stop murdering people. No, that’s just it’s that we have to know what we’re dealing with so we know what the proper solution is. And so it’s going back is just these guys are linked to Satan.
And so we go through in both volume one and two of the book and talk about a lot of those different tentacles and how they do go back to Satan, how they admit it, what their role is. But if you understand the scriptural basis,
like in Ether chapter eight, and we do, we have members of the Tree of Liberty Society that aren’t Latter -day Saints of any stripe. And so,
but I don’t shy away from the fact that that’s what guides me. The rest of our stored gospel and the scriptures are what, you know, shape my worldview. It’s just the way it is. And so Ether chapter eight,
Moroni’s talking about the Seer combinations in the Jaredites time. He’s talking about the Seer combinations in his time. And then he says that they are the cause. It’s not just all they were slothful. They were wicked.
Well, no, he says that it was the conspiracy of their day that destroyed their civilization. And then he says, let me hold on, you guys reading this book. My people aren’t reading this book.
You know, you guys in the last days, you’re reading this book and you not not some rando, you know, watching TBN. I’m talking about people that believe that the Book of Mormon is true. Let me talk to you for a second because you’re the one believing me.
Nobody else, you know, if you don’t have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, you’re not believing me. I’m talking to you guys that believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God. There is a conspiracy in your day and you need to awaken to your awful situation because of it.
And you need to repent of your sin of not doing something about it. Otherwise, you’re going to be destroyed. And so he gives an if this,
then that scenario, right? If you don’t do anything about this, you’re in deep trouble. You have a commandment The Lord told me to do away with evil. I need to tell you about this. And so are we going to obey God and do something about it or not?
So we have to understand it before we can do something about it. We need to kind of, one of the ways that Satan gets people also to not be effective in the battle,
not just to give up, but to say, oh, he doesn’t exist. Or if we just focus on the positive, those types of things, that’s not what Moroni says. Moroni says, no, we have to know about this.
I’m commanded to tell you this so that evil may be done away and Satan can have no more power upon the hearts of the children of men. You understand the conspiracy and what your duty is towards it gets rid of evil and makes it so Satan can’t have power over the people.
And so we have a divine mandate to understand it and then to do something about it. We’re not supposed to be like the Prophet James says, to be doers, we’re not supposed to be hearers only. We’re supposed to be doers of the word or this idea of just learning about it,
just to be an information junkie and getting your next fix for what the next hot rumor is does nobody any good. I don’t want to be the most informed person in the concentration camp.
I want to prevent that from happening. Do you feel that there are still a brethren at the top that feel this way still? Maybe they don’t talk about it? Again,
not to destroy people’s testimonies. I don’t believe so. Okay. I think we’ve been given the people that we deserve. And I think that’s where we’re at. And maybe they do feel that,
but they’re being guided to, like you said, implement a different narrative because of what the people are accepting and rejecting. Because I’ve even asked Joel Joel about,
I bring up Joel a lot because I just had him on. Yeah, sure. And so I bring people on and I don’t necessarily agree with everything they talk about, but I get a plethora and a,
you know, a smorgasbord of ideas on here. We should all agree. I shouldn’t agree with myself five years ago either. Right. So Joel, I asked him about the three branches of government and I even asked him about,
you know, oh, about Oaks, Dallin H. Oaks, but that was off -camera. And I said, isn’t he,
he’s a pretty hardcore constitutionalist. He said, well, there’s a difference. Dallin H. Oaks, it believes the Constitution as far as the Supreme Court interprets it.
And I, I’m not a constitutional scholar. So I didn’t, after I thought about and researched a little, I kind of understood what he’s talking about. In other words,
a flowing document, a living document. A living document. As far as the courts are interpreting it. Right. The three branches of government,
do we still have them? I asked him that and he said, no, he doesn’t think we do anymore. No. He thinks that we are, it’s a, what do they call it? Not a king or a court. What do they call it?
Is it a, yeah, a king, a puppet regime type of, it’s all for show now. It’s almost like the king of England. You know,
or. Yeah. Do we have three branches of government? What say you on that? I would agree with that assessment. And I think that’s been that way for a long time. And that’s not to be,
again, negative, even on, right, on. Some people say, well, that means you’ve given up. I’m like, no, no, no, I’ve done everything but give up. We just need to understand the situation that we’re in.
And so just kind of bringing up just, and that, that’s the way that it’s been for a long time. Again, when after the death, I’m just looking up my microphone. right now I could see you are you are looking something up you have the looking something up is you know after the death of the Hiram and Joseph the council will 50 continued to meet and they were kind of deciding what are we going to do and so let’s see
here today oh I apologize hopefully we can oh it’s okay I want to say this while you’re looking that up I do like what you said Ben uh I liked your comeback when you when I asked you about the brother and if they believe that and you said you basically like we said earlier brothers and sisters we Ben and I both know that these are men of God and we know that they are put there by inspiration and and what Ben
said was perfect that they are just doing the Lord’s bidding they are following the Savior it’s not that they’re going by their own ideas they are giving us and commanding us by what we are ready to accept and receive and the Lord is giving us what we’re ready to receive and we’ve rejected we have rejected a lot of what we should be receiving yep so just I found I found the quote so no you’re good um like I
believe that I’ve come to this conclusion looking at what did the saints do what did the saints believe in 1845 1844 and you know do we think that Satan has like taken a break and he’s like okay let’s give you your freedoms back I don’t believe so and so in the council the 50 minutes of March 1845 1845,
a mass alignment said, “When I think of the government, I think, ‘Damn it, there has been nothing but one continued scene of wrath and persecution poured upon us. They legislate for persecution.
They legislate to take away our rights instead of affording us protection. I feel like cursing them because the Prophet Daniel said the kingdom which the God of Heaven should set up should not patch up the kingdom of the world,
but break them in pieces.'” And then Brigham Young said the following year, no, I’m sorry, earlier in the month in a meeting of the Council of Fifty, “But I tell you in the name of the Lord,
when we go from here,” meaning Nauvoo, the United States, “we will exalt the standard of liberty and make our own laws. When we go from here, we don’t calculate to go under any government but the government of God.” So did they not remember D .M .C.
98? No. Well, if you look at during the Prophet Joseph’s time when they gave the assignment to the Council of Fifty to establish a constitution, and what they ended up writing was more of like a declaration of independence explaining why they were doing what they were doing,
and then the Lord gave Joseph the revelation of what their constitution was to be. And so in this document that they said was laid out these principles were correct principles.
It was that every government at that point in time, 1844, that it was in existence in the world, had gained their power through usurpation and fraud and bloodshed. And so with God raised up,
you know, we need to separate the Constitution from the United States government. We’re not trying to save the United States government, we’re trying to save these eternal principles, D .N .C. 98, and it says what the constitutional law of the land is,
that would protect rights and privileges. And so that’s the Lord’s definition of what is constitutional. And so they said no, the United States had apostatized from those principles.
They were not following those principles in 1845. Joseph said that in 1844. And so if they didn’t have it, then we don’t have it now. And so our job is to understand.
They were persecuting the saints. That wasn’t constitutional. Exactly. Yeah. Well, and they weren’t protecting them in their rights. No. And when we came out west, did they protect us? No, they invaded us a sovereign territory and forced us.
They said, we’re going to keep coming after you. We’re going to keep attacking you until you become a state. Then you guys, if you guys join back with us, come with us again, join together and you guys can rule yourselves because you’ll be a sovereign state in the Union,
which is not a thing after the 1860s. And so they were basically, I don’t know, not blackmailed, but they were, I can’t remember the word similar to that, where they beat you and tell that you do what they want you to do.
So they capitulated and capitulated until they were allowed to become a state under the guise that once they become a state, they could live as they wanted to. And then, of course,
that didn’t happen. Right. Yeah. Some people have tried to explain it. I don’t know. You might disagree, but this is the founding fathers’ ideas. I tried to draw a straight line,
but I screwed up. Founding fathers’ ideas, but that we kind of throughout time just kind of go like this. Weave through it. Right. Where we go down, where we’re not following it like we should,
but then we come back up and we’re not above it. But then we’re kind of on par a little bit. But we’re never quite meeting the mark. It’s like you have the ideal,
but we’re never quite meeting the mark. You’re saying it’s been corrupted since, like even before Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War. Yeah. And people say that he was a funny name.
He was a war that wasn’t the Civil War. It’s a war for independence. Just like it’d be calling the war for independence in the Civil War. Well, and like, wasn’t Abraham Lincoln?
Some people say he was a globalist. Yeah, absolutely. He was a part of a group called the Radical Republicans, which were directly related to the Jacobins, which were part of the French Revolution and the guillotines.
And today the Marxists have a group called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. So I know a lot of people won’t like that, that fact, but it’s kind of like using a similar visual to what you had,
what there was in Back to the Future too. You have the diversion. It wasn’t like, this isn’t this back and forth. It’s like, no, this is a completely different line. And we’re getting further and further away,
as opposed to going back and forth over it. You know, they like to show us on beast -controlled media that, you know, oh, it gets good and then it gets bad and then it gets good,
but we’re, you know, just kind of on this level playing. You didn’t hear that before, OK. Oh, yeah, yeah. But I think that’s just to kind of keep us, make us think that if we just continue giving the conspiracy more and more power and train them legitimately eventually,
you know, these bad people are going to treat us well. And I think we just need to really realize that people that follow Satan are, the only time that they treat you well is when they’re trying to get you to trust them.
Well, why, OK, so here’s a good question of follow -up for that. I believe you. I think there’s a lot of truth in what you’re saying about it not being that the three branches of government are kind of a joke now.
So why do these autocrats and fake philanthropists like J .S.? You know who that is, right? Oh, oh, G .S.
You said G .S. Sorry, I said G .S. G .S. Like Joseph Smith? I don’t know what you’re talking about. No, G .S. OK, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we always go to him, but there’s many others like him.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. What why do they keep what keeps this nation going then? Why why do they like us here? Why do they why do they allow us to to thrive and pretend?
Why do they keep just getting politicians like Mitt Romney and others in their pocket and just utilize them? And do they want to they’re not trying to rapidly take down our government,
or is it hard to do because of the people? They’ve already taken it over and they make us think that we still have control. Oh,
right, right. And so it’s similar to the matrix, right? If you make it too perfect, the people will wake up. Also, the same thing as adverse is if it makes it too hard, the people wake up.
They notice that with the Soviets without, you know, the United States propped up the Soviet Union. We gave them our money and kept them going for as long as they went.
And then they decided to do their perestroika deception and make us think that they fell and the whole plan. And so what we see going on right now in China, you know,
that’s kind of like what they’re trying to do is what’s this mix? How much control can we have before we get resistance? And so we’re like Gulliver where we’re asleep and we have these little tiny strings wrapped around us,
not realizing what’s going on, boiling frog approach type of a thing. And then all of a sudden, we don’t realize it. And so we think that, you know, we don’t realize the situation that we’re in because we don’t know history.
The history that’s that is taught to us is designed to get us to give the powers in charge legitimacy. And we don’t realize the situation that we’re in.
So we don’t do the right thing. And so we’re distracted. We’re on this hamster wheel. Just think and so then, you know, about two years after being on the hamster wheel of voting harder and doing a lawsuit,
maybe, and all of a sudden, you know, nothing’s working. So I’m just going to give up and go back to my life and and try to make things as comfortable as possible. And so and just,
you know, and then just some people that are dedicated, they keep on doing the same thing with the same results, thinking that eventually if we just get enough people to vote harder, vote earlier and more often and, you know,
write more letters, then maybe maybe the mafia will will will see the truth and they’ll do the right thing or we’ll be able to get somebody that’s not in the mafia controls the election machine.
And so we’re going to trust that a good guy can get through the mafia’s controlled election machine. Like this to me that this logic just makes no sense. It’s not and it’s not being pessimistic.
It’s just realizing where we’re at. So we know what to do. So, Ben, to sum it all up, what is the solution? What is that? That’s it’s really important.
And so I cover it in more detail. I’m not going to be able to have time to be able to go over it in a format like this. But in volume two of my book Invasion, I really lay out the history and the documentation that shows this is what works throughout time.
The Founding Fathers were amazing when they when they formed the Constitution, they looked at what were the what were the flaws in the Roman Republic, the Greeks, the ancient ancient Israel, you know,
just on and on and on and what what worked and what didn’t work, what preserved liberty. And so they put together something that if followed, if you had a moral people would actually, you know,
be be something that that fixed things. But what I think what I found is just through my years of experience is that I haven’t seen anybody really look at that. What is it that they did to gain freedom?
Not, you know, that that was the Constitution’s after they already said bye bye to England. What did how did they become a free people to be able to write a Constitution like that? And so I’ve been able to identify three basic things that the conspiracy is afraid of.
That’s when they’ll go after you. Basically, this is what the saints found. And this is what we see that if we do this, they have less power over us, and then we can gain more and more freedom. And so those three those three things that I cover in both books are first we have political independence is when they violate the law,
which is the Constitution, the founding fathers, and you look at previous generations was to say that that was an illegitimate law, they called it pretend legislation in the Declaration of Independence. So it’s pretend we need to treat pretend laws like they’re pretend and ignore them and stuff,
you know, and be willing to take the risk. We have to we have to show our faith to get the blessing. Second is economic independence over and over again. You know,
when we are dependent upon this inflation, boom, bust, Federal Reserve system, where they, you know, where the dollars lost 92 % of its buying power from 100 years ago,
you have to work twice as hard to make less money. And so you’re a you’re a slave. And so they keep you perpetually in this system. And so it makes it more and more difficult for you to be able to escape that system.
And so being able to, you know, produce more of what you own, I mean, what you what you use, your food, your clothing, your, your land, the things that you use on a day to day basis, if you are in these Agenda 21,
Agenda 2030 high rise buildings, you are dependent upon everybody there, you can’t have a garden, you can’t produce what you what you need, you’re a slave. And so it’s important that we become economically independent.
And the next thing is to make sure that, you know, our children are not being raised in Babylon that are, you know, we shouldn’t be shocked if we send our kids to Babylon that they don’t come back home Babylonians.
And so if we’re sending our kids into government schools that are designed to train them up to follow into the system and get the system more power, then we are making sure that the next generation continues on what we did and what our previous generations did,
we have to get them out of government schools and have them be taught by people. If we’re not going to home school, find people, either co -ops or private schools that will teach them the principles that you want instilled in them.
Because if you send them to school, you know, five days a week, seven to 3pm, 7am to 3pm, and then you spend at best, if you’re lucky an hour, undoing that a day,
if you’re lucky, they’re going to say, well, why if everything that they’re teaching is wrong, why are you sending me there, dad, mom? because I’m busy working and so we we we’ve got to take start with those three steps understand those three things and and start to work on those things I believe that you know we can see miracles we I did a video on the miracles of nullification the blessings that we receive when we
stick to correct principles no matter how scary it is because we need to see that yes the Lord will back us up when we get a testimony and we act according to that testimony and so I believe that those are the the the first steps and and then we start looking at what was it the kingdom of God really is so I cover that in the depth go and so it’s nice right you can read 300 400 page book which is the minutes
of the council of 50 minutes I encourage everyone to do that but what I did in volume two of my book and a little bit of volume one is I I took out the gems right explaining the principles clearly how they’re laid out in those minutes what were they were trying to do and then seeing how we can do that ourselves is I think but those are some key things we have to change our paradigm and and not say well what
can we do without getting in trouble and reverse it to what does the Lord want me to do what is the Lord already revealed in scriptures he’s not going to give us a new revelation if an old if a revelation’s already been given on it and so we need to look at what has already been given and how do I apply that amen and so that’s what we’re doing in the tree of liberty society is helping people build that
understanding working together to build courage because if I’m you know out there by myself it’s a lot more scary I’ll I do it but I want other people on you know bigger things as we get our our toes you know used to the water we can do bigger and better things and so I’m joining together to be able to give each other strength I think is really really important so that’s what we’re doing the tree of liberty
society nice I’m so thankful that you came we can find all of the links everything that we the book the all the books everything you’re talking about on the website absolutely liberty The Tree of Liberty Society dot com and I will leave that link,
brothers and sisters. Thank you so much, Ben. Will you come back? Anytime. Done. Thank you very much. Thank you.