TRANSCRIPT
Dear Heavenly Father, we’re thankful of the opportunity we have to meet together and learn many important things about the nature of the kingdom of God on Earth and political machinations of powers that be.
And we ask that that would help prepare our minds and hearts for ways to struggle for the cause of freedom. And we pray for these things in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen. Amen. All righty, Carmen, if you could give us our minutes for the 22nd of July. Free of Liberty Society minutes for July 22nd,
2024. The opening prayer was offered by Dan McClintock. Then talked about August 3rd picnic and reminding us to RSVP.
Talked about organized attacks and that’s bleeding our membership. Our expenses are increasing.
He talked about the credit cards, how the old Old credit cards are expiring and everyone needs to adjust and change their donations.
Just to be clear, not not expiring, that the banks are just replacing them with a new card because of a new system. Oh, okay. Yes, okay. But the big part about that was that everybody needs to change all of their automatic withdrawals and stuff like that he said that the automatic payments will lapse and you need to redo the auto drafts for training I was Ben was talking about compromise talked about 1 Samuel chapter
2 where the Lord commanded I don’t have enough room here okay there was a command from the Lord who to destroy certain people and not save the goods but kill the bad and kill the bad kill kill everything,
and he rejected Saul who did not obey God. And there’s the compromises, there are consequences for compromising the word of the Lord.
Being obedient never changes. And then since it takes further inroads upon the old social order, And this was attributed to Karl Marx.
There’s a slow methodical change. Samantha said they’re throwing her a bone so that she feels that she needs to cooperate. You have,
she said that they want us to compromise our principles. Wait a minute, let me back up because she talked about the lost leaders.
Oh yeah, like when you go shopping and it offers freebies and just to soften you up. And when that happens,
then you have compromised your principles. That’s, that’s a better, a better way to say what she said. Their intentions are not peaceful,
and they are for utter destruction. They want to get rid of Christ. Bobby commented on FDR’s New Deal,
new form of tax, that the people didn’t see coming. Ben talked about Volume 2 invasion. Hyren Hyren Smith,
sin to vote, talked about compromise in politics and that it’s a sin to vote for wicked men. You don’t fear men or the devil.
Bobby talked about third -tier candidates. Are they decent men? Ben said that in 1840 at that point, that was possible to have decent men.
Ben suggested if you’re going to vote, choose a lower tier candidate. Ellen Arthur said, people are always grabbing for more.
Ben said the manifesto history, 1890, announced the end of the plural marriage for the church, And the church members started going after the leaders and put it to a vote.
Alan Arthur suggested that all they had to do was leave the church if they didn’t like it. The Lord said at that in September 1886,
the Lord said, I will not revoke this law. I have not revoked this law, nor will I. Do it again,
Ben. Ben commented that the Lord will take care of us if we obey this law.
The Lord will never give permission to abandon the law. When you compromise,
the enemy will destroy you. Small compromises, some people make small compromises to not look ridiculous. Oh,
Becky commented about the LGBTQ WXYZ are in the temples with special accommodations for dressing Samantha said we don’t have religious freedom anymore and it upsets her how the apostasy happens and you shake hands with wickedness Ben got rid of how to get rid of national.
Oh, Ben made a comment about the way to get rid of national independence. Rockefeller says you must do it gradually, not all at once.
The Alta Club does the same thing little by little. He talked about Patrick Henry saying give me liberty or give me death,
God will back up that action. We won’t be alone. Give him something to bless. The enemy of freedom tries to get us to capitulate.
And then the last part, the enemy of freedom tries to get us to capitulate. He understands the score.
They are afraid we will not capitulate. Brittany Day gave the closing prayer. Wonderful. Thank you. Anybody have any corrections?
Clarifications? All right. And we’ll leave it at that. Thank you so much, Carmen. Appreciate it. Okay. Now, because I came on at the last minute,
I need to get. I get. Okay. I am ready. And who gave the opening prayer? That was Alan from Canada.
Looks like he lost internet connection. So good thing he got on when he did. Alan from Canada. Okay. I’m ready. All righty. Spiritual thought,
I wanted to read from a letter from Thomas Jefferson to William Jarvis in 1820 about our duty to preserve freedom. He says,
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves. And if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion,
the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of the abuses of constitutional power.
So we’re, because, right, well, the first three words of the Constitution are we the people. So we’re delegating certain powers to the federal government. And so we are the final arbiters of what is constitutional and what is going beyond those bounds.
And so it’s up to us to understand those principles that are delegated in the Constitution as well as the principle of our duty to nullify because we are the final arbiters,
as Thomas Jefferson says. So I just wanted to leave that as an admonition for us all to better understand the principles of nullification and of the delegated powers in the Constitution.
Who was that the game that, you identified them right before you. Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William Jarvis. I’m ready.
Okay. The next thing is, I sent out an email, hopefully you guys all got it. I’m going to be interviewing James Perloff about his new book on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
I need to be reading it before we’re going to be talking on Thursday. And so if you haven’t read his book, Shadows of Power, we have the audio version in the Tree of Liberty Society podcast.
And so I encourage you to go read that. But that’s like, that has been the go -to for 30 years to understand the globalists and the council and foreign relations.
And so James Perlough is just, he’s top notch. He’s got a lot of great stuff. There are some things that, you know, in some of his other books, being a Latter -day Saint, you know, being a Mormon,
his conclusion in Truth is a Lonely Warrior about Mormonism being an occult. Of course, I’m not going to go along with that. But generally speaking. He is really solid and he’s got his research on the conspiracy.
And so I really recommend his books. And so I’m excited to talk to him about the exploding the official myths of the Lincoln assassination.
And so if you have any questions, you’d like me to ask him. I’d just appreciate either texting me or emailing me and so that I can have those all prepared between now between now and Thursday.
So that’s our deadline to have these questions from you by is Thursday. So anybody have any questions about the interview or about James Perlough or anything?
Looking forward to it. Yeah, me too. All right. So the next thing is, is I put up a video this weekend, or I think it’s Friday.
Let me make sure I have it. Where did it be? Yeah, there it is. We’ll go back over to the five best books on Liberty.
And so I go through and I explain why I pick those as the top five. And then I have links to getting your own copies. So if you guys are looking, if anybody’s looking for some new books to read,
if you haven’t read these, these are like the go -to. Founders’ Recipe, I like a lot because it’s kind of a compilation of this and a bunch more. And so it’s just a really good one so going along with the spiritual thought of our importance to understand these principles i highly encourage that material to be able to become educated on those principles what did his wife know or condone oh oh got you okay thank you i
thought you meant like perloff’s wife so but then i got the context. I got you, Carmen. Thank you. Um, so, oh, so just wanted to bring that to your attention and encourage you to share that around.
So any questions on that? Tucker’s view on the you want me to ask him that? I like it. I think that’s a good book and an important one to read.
So, yeah, Tucker’s view, I was on the, he was one of the signers. And so I definitely think that he, it’s a great compilation on what is the meaning,
the intent of the Constitution. So, okay. And then again, this Saturday, I hope that you’ll all be able to come,
bring your spouse, bring your kids this Saturday, the third at 6 p .m. and lehigh send out the park sent out the address and an email um if you could rsvp send me a text or an email let me know you’ll be there we’d love to have you we’ve got we’ve got more people coming i’ve already rsvp than the last year so we’re we’re definitely growing and people attending which is great and um we’ll love to to see you there
anybody have any questions. Okay, no questions. Are they vacuuming upstairs?
Oh, the juicer. Okay. Sorry, I’m just getting distracted by some noise in the house. It’s not normal. Juice. What’s that? No, just close the door, so it’s quieter. I can do whatever they’re doing.
all righty so more questions we can go ahead and get um into the bulk of tonight’s meeting and as you saw in the email if you got the email for tonight’s meeting let me close this up like we know last time we it was brought up that we need to hide the panel there we go okay so i want to talk about morality and so just kind of and what that means we’ve talked about in the past the importance of morality brought
up great quotes from george washington about how it’s it is it is that virtue and morality is necessary spring of government and that it extends with more or less force to every species of free government.
And so that if you’re a friend of free government, you cannot look at indifference to attempts to get rid of that moral foundation. Okay, so it’s we’ve talked about its importance.
We’ve read from the scriptures about where the spirit of the Lord is, where is there is liberty. And which, of course, you can’t have that without morality. And that obedience to law is liberty.
And so, as a culture in general,
but I mean, even within our own ranks in the liberty movement, we’re not there yet. And so I want to really get into specifics. And so I’d love your comments, participations, questions,
that kind of stuff. So, you know, everybody thinks that they’re moral. I don’t think, you know, unless you’re talking to a really depraved person,
most people are going to think that they’re a good person, Right. You have people like this where they think that, right, that they’re a good person. They spend their time volunteering to read kids,
to read books to kids. And then you have this thing saying that they’re a good person, that they’re a conservative, right? And so everybody, you know, as depraved as they are,
they’re not going to say that, yeah, I’m depraved. Yeah, I’m a bad person. They make excuses. And they’ll say, you know, The good that I do outweighs the bad that I do, things like that. And I think that these are,
of course, extreme examples, but I think all of us do that to an extent. We all kind of say, you know, yeah, you know, I’m not perfect, but the good that I do is better than,
you know, the bad that I do. And so we really need to look at what morality is specifically, right? Specifically, everybody thinks that they’re moral. and they’re, but they’re using ambiguous definitions.
They’re like, I’m not a murderer. I don’t go around mugging people. I don’t beat my wife or my kids. So therefore, I’m a moral person. You know, I’m not going out there and having affairs or,
you know, being engaged in marital relations when you’re not married. Those types of things are the things that are generally thought of as moral.
But it’s actually much more detailed than, when it was still a kingdom that,
you know, everybody understands morality. All of us innately understand right from wrong, even if our culture and society tries to get us to accept evil as good.
But this is the story of a man by the name of Tarkinius sextus, and he was the son of the last king of Rome before becoming, before Rome became a republic. and he became obsessed with a woman by the name of Lucretia,
and she was the wife of an aristocrat. And so he really, you know, he got enamored with her. And so he, one night, while Lucretia’s husband was away,
Sextus sneaks into her room and violates her at knife point. Okay. So you can you know today what would the the response be to someone coming in and raping somebody you know she would be you know just the general response of the population today would be you know we need to support her and and comfort her and and the rapist will be arrested and go to prison but that wasn’t the response well the response,
I mean, that wasn’t the, of course, they want to comfort her, but there was more of a response than that. Immediately afterward, the grieving Lucretia summoned her husband and her father and then told them what had happened.
She then extracted from them a promise to avenge her stolen virtue and then committed suicide on the spot as a further witness against Tarkinus sextus.
So now today this would be seen as maybe an extreme that you wouldn’t want to take the so -called law into your own hands. But it was their virtue was so important to them that it was more valuable to them than their lives.
Now today is our virtue more important to us than our lives. Is the ancient Rome more moral than we are when it comes to this principle?
Because they put their lives above their virtue. They put their virtue above their lives. Sorry, reverse that. And so Lucius Brutus and Julius and Valerius carried her body the forum and raised a hue and cry against the Tarkins.
And then the Tarkins were expelled and then which led to the setup of the Roman Republic and their 12 tables of law. And so, you know, the people were responsible for the virtue of the community.
It wasn’t like they’re going to pawn that off to the government to take care of for them, especially at a point, right, the guy’s the son of the king, which probably means even less is going to happen to him.
But even that, they didn’t leave it up to the government to solve the problem for them. They recognized it was their duty to protect the virtue of the community by after virtue had been violated to eliminate those that were removing virtue from the community from them.
and that because virtue is more important than life, if it is a natural law principle that somebody that takes life is going to be killed, then and then virtue is more important than life,
that means that someone that takes away someone’s virtue has to have their life taken from them. Any thoughts, comments, questions? I agree with the principal.
So they expelled the royal family? Yeah, after killing sextus, they got rid of the rest of the royal family. You didn’t mention that for a bit. You told the story of an appointed governor come out here to Utah.
Yeah. They castrated him and what really hurts is you said in the story that they hunted the guys down that castrated him and killed him if it was a moral community out here we’d had some other mormons standing up with them and defending them absolutely you’re right so So,
you know, they didn’t need the scriptures. They didn’t need to be Christians. They didn’t need to be Jews. They didn’t need to be Muslims to understand that chastity was of utmost importance, right?
They were a heathen people. They weren’t part of any of the Abrahamic religions. And yet somehow they knew that their virtue was more important than their life. I mean, that really tells us that all,
you know, that idea that we all have the Spirit of Christ in our lives. you as an excuse to allow wickedness to rain and allow different you know things to become legal or to become accepted in a society and so yeah go ahead there’s a similar story in the old testament with abraham or no not abraham um jacob and his sons where their sister gets defiled and they go in and like wipe out the whole town yep they go
through and kill them all. So what do you guys think of Jacob’s response to the situation? He wasn’t pleased with the way his sons conducted themselves, which I get why they did it.
But what do you, how do you make of that? Or what do you make of that? That instead of getting rid of the whole community, they should have just gotten rid of the guy that did it. He might have thought that they’d gone too I remember him just,
I remember Jacob just saying that because you’ve wiped out that whole family, you’ve, you know, brought all the, you brought, you know, basically death onto us because everyone else is going to exact revenge for the death of the family,
all the other tribes and stuff. But instead, God sent plagues down and everyone was busy while they left. So, and yeah but so it worked out worked out good so god god took care of jacob yeah yeah well the whole family was like you know like what if you know what if my son gets older and suddenly he brings in this you know very young girl and it’s like check out this girl that i got um you know i’m like what
are you doing but they didn’t that the whole near the none of the family did that they didn’t hold their son accountable for kidnapping this little girl and so they all deserved what they got that’s my opinion yeah that’s reasonable um i i think it even says that they actually took they they took the women i don’t remember though it’s been a while since i’ve read it but they killed they killed all the men and all
their posterity that’s a good account Becky appreciate you bringing that up really wholesome yeah well it’s you know right that that that brings me to the point I’m going to be bringing on is that how different our morality is today than it was you know when people were actually seeing God face to face I think that I think that was extremely wholesome because that just shows yeah like no one in the family was like
hey you at the very least you’d be like hey dude if you’re going to like kidnap little girls and force them to do these things that you have no right to do you know i’m not going to live among you right like it there wasn’t even that i mean maybe there was but it wasn’t written in it and if that was then those people i don’t think they got killed yeah you know but it’s just what what is what is the worth of
somebody who just stands around and they’re and continues to even just associate with those people like if i had a friend who committed adultery or did anything like that i’d be like you’re not my friend anymore like at the very least i would i would have to do that like i can’t associate with you anymore because you’ve done this heinous crime like we literally cannot be friends you know it’s just you can’t you can’t
be around those people those people those people have no right they just I agree with you guys. They just breed evil. That’s all they do. You know,
I’m, I don’t have a TV, and I wouldn’t watch the Olympics anyway. But all day long, I’ve been listening to Talk Radio. Nothing has been said about the Olympics.
Then Glenn Beck tonight was talking about it. It seems like if we was a moral country, we’d send some H -bombs over to France right now.
Well, we’d mind our own business and separate ourselves from them. We’d have nothing to do with the Olympics. Yeah. If we were moral people, we wouldn’t have the Olympics coming to Salt Lake City. Yeah, and the church is breaking about nine VYU students over there.
I’d like to see him blown all the heck. That might sound radical, but I remember, I remember,
was the Palestinians that attacked the Jews in Yugoslavia, maybe, and kill all the Jews at the Olympic Village?
I’m going by memories, so. Is that back to the 70s or something? It doesn’t sound familiar. Okay. I’m going by memory, so it’s kind of half -hastard.
Yeah, I’m not sure. So we go on. But of course, today we have more light knowledge than those people did,
you know, because they were a heathen people. And we have more light and knowledge than them. And so we understand that there are the seven deadly sins are kind of the,
the major things that, you know, of course there’s more, right? The scriptures talk about there are innumerable ways to sin. But a lot of,
I think we could break them all down to these, you know, principles within these seven, of course. We have pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony,
and sloth. Say those again? Yeah. What? Say them again. So pride, greed, wrath, envy,
lust, gluttony, and sloth. And so if we are engaged in any manifestation of these things,
we are, you know, removing ourselves from the type of people that the founding fathers said and that the scriptures say,
we need to be to be able to have a free people. Right. I, and I would say, you know, amongst my, you know, looking down that list, I am engaged in at least,
you know, a few, two or three of them at least. And so, and so my own behavior prevents me from being able to engage in more things that will be able to have the blessing of the Lord to be able to be able to bring us to be a free people.
And so that’s why I think it’s so important because if I’m like, hey, you know, I’m obviously falling short in these things. We all need to do that as well as the information of, you know, the idea that we have,
um, our morality today is completely the antithesis of what the scriptures say is a moral people. And so we need to remember again and bring into our lives the principle of true morality and,
and look at ourselves and say okay how can i improve in these things and so that i can be the person that the lord can use to be able to restore lost liberty any questions thoughts comments we have a lot of work to do we sure do so So,
you know, hopefully we are not, you know, we can all recognize where each of us are falling short in these things. I keep going back to Tom Likas when he was on the radio channel in Arizona.
And he wanted everyone to go up in a parade Colorado City to save the 14 -year -old girls from forced marriages. And then the day that everyone was supposed to come,
he said, no one that had premarital sex, no one that has a grill on the side, and even the news channels,
which had it on all the news channels, all of a sudden was just quiet, stone death. When we start seeing what we’ve done ourselves,
it’s really hard to condemn others, but we never look at what we’ve done ourselves. Yep. Well, and even if it’s not to condemn others, because there is a time when we must have righteous judgment,
but we need to be looking, like you said, Alan, we need to be looking internally to see if we’re in a position to be able to make that righteous judgment. Where are we standing? Because it does need to be done.
We do need to be at a point where we can judge wickedness and enforce. And so there was this case here in Utah where George A.
Smith or George A. Smith was representing an individual that was being charged of the crime. Okay. So this gets into the idea of killing no murder from the book.
And so George A. Smith says it was admitted on the part of the prosecution that James Monroe, who was alleged in this indictment to have been killed by Howard Egan,
had seduced Egan’s wife. Okay. So that’s what this is what the court case is all about. Egan had killed Monroe because he had seduced his wife. And that he had to be,
that he had come into this place in the absence of her husband and had seduced his family in consequence of which an illegitimate child had been brought into the world.
And the disgrace which must arise from such a transaction in his family had fallen on the head of the defendant. So we look at this culture,
you know, people would say, oh, that’s a, you know, the scarlet letter and how bad that that is. But this was understood for generations for millennia of the consequence of losing one’s virtue and what it um and the result of that not only upon the person that lost their virtue but upon those that are responsible for them you know you go back even 50 60 years ago and how a teenage daughter that had lost her virtue
it was a shame on her whole family, her, you know, and her father, you know, and what kind of parents were they? Whereas today, you know, it’s, it’s dismissed and thought,
you know, we don’t want to judge and we don’t want to be harsh. But, but what does it actually say about the culture where that lack of morality has taken root? It continues on.
He says, in England, when a man seduces the wife or relative of another, the injured enters into a civil suit for damages, which may perhaps cost him 500 pounds.
To get his case through, and as a matter of course, if he unfortunately belongs to the toiling million, he may get 20 pounds as damages.
So if he’s, you know, if he’s poor, he’s not even going to get the 50. In this case, character is not estimated, neither reputation, but the number of pounds,
shillings, and pence alone you know,
recompenses, you’re going to sue, you know, going to go through the courts and you’re going to get some kind of, you know, remuneration for your time. And as opposed to,
and there’s no question as opposed to the character of the individual and how it was damaged. It was all about money. And what’s worse is that the courts take money too you know they do their own yeah to pay the fee to get it done yeah yeah exactly they profit off of crime yep so continuing on it says in taking this point into consideration i argue that in this territory it is a principle of mountain common law
that no man can seduce the wife of another without endangering his own life. What is natural justice with this people? Does a civil suit for damages answer that purpose?
Not with an isolated individual, but with his whole community? Says, no, it does not. The principle, the only one that beats and throbs through the heart of the entire inhabitants of this territory,
is simply this. The man who seduces his neighbor’s wife must die, and her nearest relative must kill him. If Howard Egan killed James Monroe,
it was in accordance with the principles of justice which exists within these mountains, which is based on the scriptures, which is based on God’s laws. And those same natural laws is exactly what happened,
right? We see in Rome. And so this isn’t some backwards people that, you know, aren’t we glad that we’re so much more civilized than they are and that we can handle these things in a civilized manner?
If this is civilization, you know, give me the backwards society because what we have now is just depravity to an extent that is unbearable.
But they understood that it was just like you throw a ball up in the air that you seduce someone else’s wife you agree that you are going to die because that is the natural result to that action and that you you knew that that was the natural result of that behavior that’s why you were afraid of being caught and now today you know what’s the worst that’s going to happen you know the guy will you know will will
sue me or you know something along those lines there’s no fear there’s no shame in doing wrong anymore and there’s no actual consequence in in doing wrong anymore and so that’s a part of our immorality as a culture not not saying that you know we’re all out there seducing women’s you know men’s husbands,
men’s wives, but that we are not engaged in supporting a culture that would take, that would enforce it in this manner. That if we saw someone saying that this was the right remedy to such a situation,
that we would probably fight it shows that we are in immoral society, not even engaging in adultery, but in not supporting the natural consequence for adultery in others.
And so we look through, right? We’ve forgotten what true morality and virtue are. That is the sign that why we’re in the situation that we’re in is because we allow evil to continue.
We do not take steps to punish evil or to prevent evil. We don’t even know what sin is anymore, really, when it comes down to it. And so these things,
of course, have been taken from us on purpose. As I, you know, just talking about it is the idea of how much of morality has changed from, you know, 50 years ago to today.
And that, you know, just if it was, you know, there’s been cases recently where a a man killed a guy that, you know, that molested his son. And, you know, the idea that he would even go to trial for that is ludicrous.
And so it’s, you know, that is the fruit of a rotten society, as George A. Smith explained. And so we need to look into the necessity of morality and freedom,
right? Why did they say that? So George Washington said human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy,
an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any despotic or oppressive form, so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people.
Okay. So today, in today’s world, this seems ludicrous because we only think of virtue as, you know, a best case scenario of being, you know, of not killing,
you know, being morally pure, not robbing, right? Not beating people up. That’s kind of the limit of virtue in today’s mindset.
And so that’s why it’s so hard for us to grasp that why would virtue be so important towards liberty? But I think that giving us this background to saying what,
you know, a virtuous society does to evil helps us to see what George Washington was talking about. How could virtue be so powerful in preventing us becoming a monarchy and oligarchy or any despotic or oppressive government if it was simply not engaging in bad behavior but there’s obviously more to it than that benjamin franklin laws without morals are in vain you can’t who cares how many laws you have if you’re immoral
you’re going to find a way around it and there’s no stopping you anyways thomas jefferson he says it is in the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor.
Degeneracy in these is a canker. Degeneracy in manners is a canker, which soon eats into the heart of its laws and constitution.
Now, I’d like to kind of get some thoughts from you on just these last three. Why do you guys think that they would say such a thing? Why? How does that work into practical application?
What are your thoughts? We have every problem. Anybody? Well,
virtue entails self -government. And if the body of the people are governing themselves, They’re not going to tolerate a tyrant trying to govern them.
You know what I mean? So I think that that’s one connection. There’s probably more. Yeah, that’s definitely a good one. Being moral people,
it’s starting to sound like we’d be killing people all the time. But they had the population controlled in the beast of them biting all the hippies out i thought of another one you know you showed those seven deadly sins a while back in the slides yeah if we’re caught up in those we’re not going to care about engaging in rhetoric public discourse we’re not we’re not going to be paying attention to what’s happening in
the political sphere so to speak so it’s a virtuous people aren’t distracted by evil things and things that don’t matter yeah I like both those something you want to say something I think those people of good spirit are inclined to destroy evil.
You know, that’s even what the, that guy was testifying about against the, you know, the laws in these mountains. Because it’s not, you know, the husband went and killed that man who violated his wife.
You know, that was in good spirit. That was, he, he sought out, I, you sent me that journal discourse audio and I listened to it. And there was even a piece in there where want you causing any trouble with his people here like he didn’t even instead of calling the cops and the guy coming to kill him he’s like you get off the train yeah you get off the train today they’d be calling the cops on the guy that’s come
to kill him and he said there isn’t like any amount of money you could pay me for you to ride my train is is what he’s I’m paraphrasing it but that’s also what he said you know according to the statement and so there’s just you know a good a good spirit wants to destroy evil that’s it’s uh and works at it that’s really and will not succumb to temptations like money yeah to allow it that’s that’s good manners good
spirit to not not tolerate such such evil among you among yourself around you yeah yeah good let’s let’s keep on going so i think there’s a a a train of thought amongst the founders.
Baron Montesquieu, also one of the people read by the founders, he says, when virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it. And avarice possesses the whole community.
So when you start to, when you get rid of virtue in a community, in every level of it, of course, those that don’t have right they don’t have the that self -controlling nature anymore and so now there’s nothing to stop them from wanting to get power to get money or to just get whatever you know sin they want accumulated to themselves and then that spreads to the whole community in um in the boot camp um was it
number through two um you know i i bring up or is it one that’s i think it’s no it’s one in boot camp number one um i get into the you know the us personally,
takes over our families, it takes over our communities. And so it’s essential that we do not allow it to flourish in ourselves and amongst others.
Patrick Henry says that virtue, morality, and religion, this is the armor, my friend, and this alone that renders us invincible. Virtue,
morality, religion make you invincible. These are the tactics we should study. If we lose these, we are conquered, fallen indeed, so long as our manners and principles remain sound,
there is no danger. So if we lose virtue, morality, and religion, we’re done. So we’ve already fallen, whether we recognize it or not. You look at Rome, when the people,
the the roman empire existed they still consider themselves the republic they didn’t realize that they had already fallen same thing you know in any in any society if that’s gone you’ve fallen whether you recognize it or not ben yeah yeah so obviously that’s what’s happened to our republic and It goes to something you touched on,
which is we aren’t corruptible. The Gadion robbers, the conspiracy, can’t use us and flip us and destroy the liberty of the people.
When our leaders are moral, they are untouchable because they’d rather die than destroy the liberties of their people and they would rather risk their lives to expose it and defend it.
And you don’t see anything remotely like that today. But this is where we are today. It’s just, you know, representative after senator, after leader, after leader that are easily manipulated because they have these weaknesses that are preyed upon,
and they make them susceptible to the Gadiantans in charge. And that’s what they look for, right? They want you in compromising positions,
and then they have you, right? And you are easily used from then on. That’s a lot of times the gateway of maybe well -intentioned people that are leaders but um i i’m not even convinced that i think we have a culture of of corruption and sin in our leaderships but anyway so but this is this is the armor our culture we are yeah well our leaders are come from the the culture right i mean we are that’s this is
exactly what we breed right and this is what we settle for and we’re not disgusted by adulterers, you know, Bill Clinton way back when we’re not disgusted by all the scandals that people are wrapped up in.
Like, we wouldn’t have anything to do with that. If we had any morals, we would want people of impeccable character that we were, that we were sure were God -fearing and believed in scriptures.
And So we’re so far from that. But it really is an armor. I would say individually, it is an armor to know, I mean, you can say it’s the armor of God, right? Because the fiery darts of the adversary can’t penetrate when you have that spirit of the Lord with you and virtue.
And if we would get that back in our communities in Zion, then we would have a foothold and take back ground into building the kingdom of God,
which will do this right and be able to destroy all these wicked governments. Yep. Yes, thank you. I’m totally amazed.
We brought up Bill Clinton, so I’ll pick on him. He said that he never inhaled When he was doing drugs,
he didn’t inhale, so it wasn’t bad. Nowadays, I know how they brag about inhaling, they bring about different drugs they had. The morality,
and I’m going to say of the people, is morals are looked on as weakness. They’re You’re self -righteous.
Yeah, self -righteous. Now, now being a sinner, even within religion, I’m a sinner, and I’m going to benefit myself,
there’s hardly no breaking it. LeGrand Richards gave a talk, and I remember it.
He said, if I would have sampled this wine, that’s a, you know, And so we’ve got to make sure that we don’t fall for that lie,
that there is a standard that, yes, we are all fallen, but we all have been commanded to judge righteously and to be immoral people and to stand up against wickedness. And so those aren’t contradictions.
We have to recognize our fallen nature and then move forward and do better and then make sure that our community doesn’t allow us to get,
you know, isn’t something that’s supporting us getting worse. You know,
we’re talking about taking vengeance on perpetrators of evil, which is good. Where’s the line, the line of mercy in everybody’s minds,
I guess? Before I say anything, I’ll let anybody else want to pipe up first. Well, the lady that was accused of being a, I’m really biting my lip.
Old Southern Utah cowboy language I don’t want to use because I don’t want everyone laughing thinking I’m an idiot that I am. He was caught in adultery. We’ll keep it at that.
Okay, it’s cotton adultery. She hadn’t been tried for it, just accused for it. I was shocked when I I got reading some of the commentaries that a woman who run a,
like a bread and breakfast, she was classified as a loose woman, but she had a strange man in her house.
So the definitions were even the appearance of evil was bad. And nowadays, the appearance of evil is a notch for trophies yeah you gotta change our whole our whole I’ll use Stephen Rovey’s word we got to change our own paradigm on what the evil is anybody else I think it has to do with the nature of the of whatever has been done right because it’s like the line is drawn well the line is drawn for what you know
what i’m saying like are we talking about death are we talking about um restoring something that’s been stolen i mean even i guess this would have been the mosaic law but isn’t it weren’t they like if they stole a sheep they had to give back I don’t know 10 sheep or something like that I think it I think seven where where evil is being perpetrated the punishment has to be worse than just an eye for an eye a tooth
for tooth kind of stuff yeah so just because we’re short on time I’ll just kind of chime in um you what did this the the savior in that example that was given about the woman caught in adultery he told her to go and sin no more and so i think there’s first a difference in is someone truly repentant and trying to do better the lord said that you know how often would i gather you as a hen gathereth her chickens
but you would not and so is the person rebellious is the person kind of you know are they still full of pride or are they humbled have they humbled themselves and are they you know have they had a true change of heart and wanting to um you know turn their life over and not to to go and to want to go and sin no more would be you know a key thing but and and as sal said of you know the level of it as well
right you’re not going to just start, you know, killing everybody just because they stole a pack of gum has to, you know, has to be within the realm of the crime. And so,
and that’s why, you know, virtue was so important because just like life, you can’t restore virtue. You can’t restore life. And so those things are, you know, are up there.
And they’re the top ones. And so, And so I would say that was the main difference was, is this person repentant or are they still stuck in their pride?
So let’s go ahead. When I was teaching a high priest, we were talking about repentance. And these are, they were old with me.
I was made a high priest when I was kind of young. They ask how long before you know if repentance has worked for you.
And there was all kinds of answers. Like there’s a period of time to get to pay penance. Understanding true repentance is a life change.
So it never even crosses your mind just slip back into it. That’s a total life change. Well,
they called a change of heart. So we go on. John Adams says it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand.
The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. So let me go back. So what I noticed amongst the founding fathers, you know, they had their arguments about what kind of government to have.
But even when it came down to it, they’re like, here’s the Constitution. They recognized that it didn’t matter what kind of government you had if the people were not virtuous.
You know, this idea of, yeah, a Republican, you can keep it. You can’t keep it if you’re not virtuous. There’s no government that you can have that’s good if you’re not virtuous and then and your virtue is shown not only in your own actions but in your response to unvirtuousness going back to Washington and what he said you know you cannot stand idly by and allow people to undermine the foundation of a good government
which is virtue And so our response is as much a outward sign of our own virtue as our actions in our own lives.
And the Lord, talking in Matthew chapter 15, said, But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts,
murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man. So our thoughts need to be controlled as much as our actions because we will not act if we are not thinking that thing.
And so if we fall into this trap of saying that thoughts are not sin, we will lead, it will lead us to committing those thoughts.
It is these things defile us. Our thoughts, if they are not kept in check, if our thoughts are not virtuous, they will lead into our actions being without virtue. And so,
and this virtue is so vital, it is what allows everything into us. So this gets in nothing, what Elior is talking about, what it shows. It says, there are certain, this is from party p pratt key to the science of theology i’ve quoted it before it’s in the presentations there are certain qualifications or personal preparations indispensably necessary without which no person can be a proper candidate for blessings so divine
including liberty he must forsake a sinful course of life must deny himself of every impure or unlawful indulgence must do right with his fellow creatures,
and determined to keep the commandments of Jesus Christ. A man who continues in his sins, and who has no living faith in the Son of God, cannot receive the gift of the Holy Spirit through the ministration of any agent,
however holy he may be. By this divine spirit, all things were designed and formed. By this divine substance, all things live, move and have a being.
By this agency, Moses controlled the sea, Joshua the motions of the earth, Daniel the mouths of the lions, and his brethren the flames. By this, the heavens were opened and were shut.
The rain or the dearth prevailed. Armies were subdued, the sick healed, or the dead raised. Without this giving up of all wickedness in our lives,
we will not be in a position to be able to do or that was for an earlier generation.
No, that is for anyone that will live this life of virtue because then you will be able to have true freedom as spoken of in the scriptures and will make us a terrible people that the government then fears.
And so with that, again, I apologize. We are over our time. And we’ll go ahead and close up and then we’ll have open forum. Mr.
Sal, would you say the closing prayer for us? Yeah, no problem, Ben. Thanks. Our dear Father in heaven, we’re grateful to be able to meet together as a group tonight and grateful for Ben preparing the lesson and grateful for everyone’s input and we pray that we can be uplifted and enriched by everyone’s input and thoughts and inspiration.
We’re grateful for the things we do know, Father. We’re grateful for covenants, for ordinances, for the priesthood. We pray,
Father, Father, that will soften our hearts and open our minds, that we may receive more revelation from thee, and through the power of the priesthood that we may receive the ministration of angels.
We pray, Father, that they’ll help us to build up thy kingdom and to know how to do so, And that as we learn these things, that they’ll help us to have the courage to take action and perform the things which thou hast asked us to do.
We pray, Father in heaven, that thou will protect us from the adversary who is cunning and who has a massive amount of power in the world today.
We pray that thou also protect us from temptation and deception. Help us to know the truth, Father, and that the Holy Ghost will give us the guidance we need in order to perform the work which thou has set aside for us to do.
And also to prepare the future generations to receive.
