Member training from January 19th 2026.
In tonight’s training we dug deep into the foundations of legitimate government—where it comes from, what empowers it, and when it may rightly use force. We traced these principles back to the government of the family, to natural law, to scripture, and to the thinkers who shaped the Founders’ worldview. We examined how true authority is rooted in God, consent, and the protection of life, liberty, and property—and how any departure from those duties turns rulers into tyrants. We also contrasted legitimate, defensive, and proportional use of force with the illegitimate practices we see so often today, from pre‑crime to speech restrictions to bureaucratic overreach. The goal was simple: to understand not only how to resist illegitimate power, but how to recognize, support, and someday build legitimate government grounded in eternal principles.
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TRANSCRIPT
Heavenly Father, we’re grateful to meet together once again tonight to discuss liberty
and truth. We pray for the Holy Ghost to be with all of us this evening,
especially be with Ben, and help us all to learn something new tonight that we can
apply in our lives and help us to spread the message to those around us. We say,
it’s the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. When can legitimate government use force?
Okay. So this presupposes that only legitimate government can use force because only
legitimate government should exist anything, even if it’s good, a illegitimate
government should be opposed. And so that’s an important thing for us to start to
grasp. So of course, what are we doing this week? I want to just have you guys
ask yourselves every week, what have I done? What have I done to increase my
knowledge? And then, of course, reminding us that, and that this is the purpose
behind every week’s training is to build the understanding of and adherence to the
principles that have built free nations, right? It doesn’t do us any good just to
build our understanding. We have to then take action on that understanding and then
expose the satanic conspiracy and then build an effective resistance to the
conspiracies. So we have two different things, building understanding on liberty,
building our understanding on the conspiracy, and then acting on both of those
things. Build understanding, take action.
So getting into government and to understand legitimate government and to understand
what powers they have, we have to understand how it goes back to the government of
the family, right? Somebody is self -governing, so it starts to the individual, but
when we start to have the interactions between people and the government,
and that kind of, in a government in that way, where you have interactions between
people, a government and the subject, right, is the family.
And so we go back to ancient Greece and Aristotle wrote that the rule of a father
over his children is royal, for he rules of love and seniority.
The rule of the husband over the wife is constitutional. I’m not sure if I brought
this up a couple of weeks ago, but this is an important thing for us to really
understand because understanding good government doesn’t just help us in the abstract
of what’s going on in civil society, but it helps us in our families.
If we are fathers, it helps us to be good governors over our family. If we are
children or if we are wives, then it helps us to understand our roles in those
positions. And we can be more effective in that way. And so if we are good rulers
in our family, then we can then turn that talent into society at large.
And so, Of course, a father is over his children,
and that is just because his role is to care for them.
That God sent those children to him. And so he has just right there, like we’ve
talked about in the past how a righteous ruler is either is chosen by God or and
then either chosen or chosen by the people or confirmed by the people, whatever
God’s choice was. And so God has, so that has given the father the natural rule
over his children by placing those children in that family. And so he rules over
them because of his love for them and his seniority. He’s got experience and he’s
been placed in that position. But the rule of a husband over a wife is
constitutional, meaning it’s contractual. they they chose each other and they had the
contract of what the man the husband promised to do and in return the the wife
promises to do something in return for that protection and that care and that’s in
the sustain and the sustenance that the husband provides for the wife and then the
wife has her contract contractual part of that as well. And so this isn’t just
going back to, you know, civilization. It’s interesting where the conspiracy really
gets us to focus on the depravity of Greek and Roman and their gods,
right, and the mythology of Greek and Rome. But what they never, right, just like I
talked about last week with the men of the plains, the middle of the hills, right,
in the men of the coast, They don’t get us, they don’t teach us what the
principles that the Founding Fathers studied and gleaned information of these
societies. And so there is a lot of natural, because they understood natural law.
And so they understood truths that we find in the scriptures as well.
In Genesis, we read that God told Eve that her desire shall be to her husband,
and he shall rule over you. So that’s a form of ruling is government. So family
government, in a godly family, the husband is to rule in that position.
And so the wife will subject yourself to that. And as well as the children in
Exodus, where they are told to honor their father and their mother. The father and
the mother are the rulers of the children.
head of the church. Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church.
So this also helps us to see legitimate government because here we say, we see what
is the husband’s role, is to be like Christ. Christ himself is not a tyrant or a
dictator in any sense of the word. And so husbands, as rulers over a family,
if Christ is the example, they will as a legitimate ruler then the husband will be
will strive as in striving to be a legitimate ruler will follow Christ’s example as
he rules the church and rules in those things and will love their fans their wives
and children as Christ loves the church and then we can see that as that expands
as we look at killing no murder or
that you would act in the same way. You are over the people, that you will love
the people as Christ loves the people, and that you will serve them, and that you
are their protector, and that you are acting as a minister for God in that way.
And so the rules of legitimate government apply in the family and civil society.
And I’m hoping that this kind of maybe has some light bulbs go off for us to
recognize that in both circumstances, somebody can lose their legitimacy as a ruler
and what that means. But what we’re going to assume tonight, and we’re going to be
talking about because we talk a lot about illegitimate government because we are
currently living under an illegitimate government. And so I want to make sure,
though, that we’re not going after the idea of just saying that that’s always the
case. Therefore, government is always illegitimate. So therefore, no matter what
anybody, any government does, that we should resist them and ignore them. But I want
us to also get in the mindset of what happens if we have a legitimate government.
That’s our goal. We should act like that. If our goal is to build legitimate
government, then we should understand legitimate government and we should understand
what behaving under a legitimate government is like. So that way we can start to
work towards that. That’s not, we’re not just resist, resist, resist. We have to
understand proper submission to legitimate government.
And so Samuel Pufendorf talking about, you talking about when taking that next step
from family to civil society where he says civil societies arise a civil society
arises when many households recognizing that they cannot safely live side by side
without a common authority unite under a single will to preserve peace and security
so So that is the next step. The previous step to civil society is the family and
that government. And so when you’ve got several families that live relatively close
together, right, side by side, they need to be able to protect themselves,
they put together and they form a common authority. That’s that next step. And so
it’s just showing, again, that what we see in the scriptures and ancient societies,
that same principle coming together and being manifest here. And so,
and then in the doctrine covenant, section 134, we learned something about government,
about legitimate government. And in verse one, it says, we believe that governments
were instituted of God for the benefit of man and that he holds men accountable for
their acts in relation to them, both in making laws and administering them for the
good and safety of society. Okay, so a couple of things to unpack there.
So we are not anarchists. We don’t believe in no rulers. We don’t believe in no
government. We believe, as the Declaration independent states that that we are given
certain you know we have rights from God and that to protect those rights we form
government okay so good government comes from God legitimate government comes from God
for our benefit because it’s an ordinance of God as the Bible says and then the
next thing is that God holds us accountable for our acts in relation to government,
okay, so we’re accountable to God for how we react to government, both in making
laws and administering them for the good and safety of society. So in our relation
to them by what laws are made, God holds us accountable, how we react to those
laws, and then how those laws are then implemented. So if it’s a bad law,
Did we oppose that bad law? And if it’s a bad law, did we resist its
administration? And if it’s a good law, if it’s a godly law, did we support that
law? And then we support its godly implementation.
And then so obviously that doesn’t mean that every government is a godly government.
Satan counterfeits everything God creates. And so in verse two, we read,
we believe that no government can exist in peace, right? This is one of those, if
this, then that’s the natural law, throw the ball up in the air, it’s going to
fall down. No government can exist in peace except such laws are framed and held
inviolet, so non -violated, as will secure to each individual, the free exercise of
conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life.
So life, liberty, and property.
Government cannot, if it doesn’t do those things, it is going to devolve into chaos
and strife and violence. Because if government stops violating natural law,
God’s law, that is the natural result. And so if we want to have peace in a
government, we have to make sure that that government is maintaining the free
exercise of conscience, property, and protection of life. Okay. And it’s not just the
right to say, I have a piece of paper that says, I own this, right? That’s not
enough. You have to have the control of that property. You have to be able to have
the ability to gain property. You have to have the ability to control what’s done
with that property and you have to have the ability of how to dispose of that
property. Otherwise, it devolves into chaos. It cannot be peaceful.
Now, okay, so just as a recap, government is an ordinance for the ordering of
society that has come together for the purpose of protecting one another’s God -given
rights in the context of being God’s servant, all government, family government, civil
government,
protecting the people and being God’s servant. These rights are identified by the
laws of nature’s God, as found in the scripture and man’s reasoning in compliance
with Scripture, and to maintain an orderly society, those who choose to combine
together to form a government must be unified in method as well as purpose of that
government, or they will devolve into factions clamoring for power through contention
and strife. This is, as we distill everything that the scripture say,
everything ancient civilizations illustrate everything that inspired and guided the
founding fathers and everything the founding fathers said where this is what distills
down to
and so but to protection takes force right this is a artist rendition of the of
Satan and his followers being cast out of heaven as we read in Revelations 12. And
if you’re Latter -day Saint, Moses 3 and 4.
And the true statement that government is not reason, it is not eloquence,
it is force, like fired as a dangerous servant and a fearful master, is accurate.
Now, this is attributed to George Washington, but He didn’t say it, but it’s the
truth, no matter, even if he didn’t say it, it is true. To be able to protect
somebody’s life, liberty, or property against someone that’s trying to take it away
requires force. So government is force. And so that means for good or for evil,
right? When we see what government does today, uses force to do evil,
right? It’s still using force. But when it acts as a servant of God, it also needs
to use force. So force is not bad in and of itself. It’s what that force is used
for. Is it used as a tool for God or is it used as a tool for Satan?
So when can government, legitimate government, use force legitimately? Because even if
a godly government starts to use force illegitimately, then it loses its position as
a legitimate government.
So all ancient civilizations, right, they’ve all, we looked at what Pufendorf said,
when families get together to create civil society, you have the Ten Commandments, we
have the 12 tables of Roman law, we have the Greece, we have the, we have Greece
and their laws, and we have things like the Magna Carta and the Constitution, people
coming together to build a civil society to protect life, liberty, and property.
That’s legitimate government. And so we, one of the most, as I mentioned before,
influential voices in the founding generation and for the founding fathers would be
Trencher and Gordon and Cato’s letters. And they wrote, government therefore can have
no power, but such as men can give And as such,
they actually did give or permit for their own sakes. Since no man or counsel of
men can have personal strength enough to govern multitudes by force or can claim to
themselves and their families any superiority or natural sovereignty over their fellow
creatures naturally as good as them. Okay? So in other words, it’s like we talked
about in.
so we look at is government if if if we look at an action we say can i do that
and if i can’t do that that means i can’t give government that power therefore the
government that’s doing that is doing that thing is acting illegitimately and is no
longer a servant of god okay you
can’t give away something you don’t have yourself and then algernon sydney and like
discourses on government said if it be said that the wise father mentioned by me
endeavors to secure his patrimony by law not by force so he’s like okay going back
to the very foundations of government going back to the family what if he endeavors
to secure his family just by law but not by force like here’s a bunch of rules
but we’re not going to enforce them we’ve written all this down but we’re not going
to actually do anything about it i answer that all defense terminates in force and
if a private man does not prepare to defend his estate with his own force tis
because he lives under the protection of the law and expects the force of the
magistrates should be a security to him, but such as neglect the mean of their own
preservation are ever left to perish with shame. So family government,
an individual, if somebody is trying to take away your life, liberty, or property,
you have to defend it with force. Whether you do that in your own home or a
legitimate action of government, right? If you neglect to use force,
then you will not be preserved. You will left to perish with shame,
right? You will, your family that depended on you for its protection, for its
guidance, for its security, for its provisions, right?
They will see you as an unfit provider and an unfit governor and they will dismiss
you as such the same thing with government if if a civil society government does
not protect the rights life liberty and property of the people then the people
themselves will perish and they will say oh you’re not a legitimate government
because you’re not protecting me
and so what are some of the things that that they can do, right? We read in
Genesis that if whoso shedeth man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed.
So God is not saying that, you know, just leave judgment to me. I’ll take care of
it, you know, in the next life or whatever. He’s saying, no, man is going to do
it. You, in this life, you will have the consequence of your actions meet it out,
right? You kill someone, you will be killed. That is God’s law.
abroad upon his staff then shall he that smote him be quit only he shall pay for
the loss of his time and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed so
if you hit some if you if you cause violence on somebody else but they don’t die
then death isn’t your penalty for hitting someone your job right god’s god is saying
that the consequence for your action is to make him whole
And so one of the other crimes that God says is punishable is theft. We read in
Exodus 22, if a man shall steal an ox or a sheep and kill it or sell it,
he shall restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep or a sheep.
Exodus 22, verse 7, if a man shall deliver unto his neighbor money or stuff to
keep and it be stolen out of the man’s house. If the thief be found, let him pay
double. Okay. So if we’re talking, it’s interesting how we have different punishments
for different things that are stolen. So there’s the, the punishment must fit the
crime. When, when the theft is more damaging, the consequence is five or four times
the thing that was taken. But if it’s something like money,
then it’s only double. Okay.
But it has to fit the crime. The thief doesn’t lose his life for being a thief.
He is punished through restitution and then plus an additional more to hopefully
prevent him from doing it the first place or to prevent him from doing it again.
Bible. And so it’s, you know, everything really goes back to eternal law. But he
says that legislators and their laws are said to compel and oblige by declaring and
exhibiting a penalty against offenders. Nothing is compulsory but punishment.
So going back to force, right? All laws use compel, meaning uses force to make sure
that the individual does either does what their you know acts within um what a
civil society needs to behave or be punished for it
and then of course right you can only punish the guilty that’s that should seem
obvious a legitimate government doesn’t punish someone that didn’t do anything wrong
now when Now, when it’s put that way, I think that it becomes like a no -duh,
right? You think water’s wet, and most will disagree with me on that statement. But,
you know, the idea of things are, it’s self -evidence, obvious, no -du.
But we have so many laws today where all of us, every single one of us on this
call, are punished for things that we have not done. We’re able to travel home
safe.
And we’ll talk about some of those examples of things that were all punished for
that we didn’t commit. We didn’t commit a crime, and yet we’re being punished for
it. In the scriptures, we read that they’re to punish the thief and restore the
victim. But tyranny says that one is restricted in trade,
for example, right? They’re going to regulate trade to prevent theft. So now you’re
being punished because you might steal something and you’re being punished in advance.
But due process is an essential part of proving that you actually did something that
you need to be punished for. And again, William Blackstone says that to punish
before proof of guilt is to confound the distinction between guilt and innocence.
Proof of guilt is to confound the distinction between guilt and innocence. So that
not everyone is being punished for the crimes of one individual. Okay.
Again, there must be proof of the crime. The scriptures say, on the testimony of
two or three witnesses, the one deserving death shall be put to death.
And then we read in chapter 19, a single witness shall not suffice.
So, you know, especially back then, you know, you don’t have video evidence of a
crime being committed to prove that somebody did something. And so you needed, you
need something else. You needed witnesses to say, I saw this happen and I saw this
individual do that thing. And to ensure that there wasn’t a conspiracy between two
individuals to get somebody in trouble, they wanted to make sure that, hey, okay,
it’s less likely in a moral society that you’re not going to be able to find
two additional individuals to say that, yes, this person did something bad.
And so they have these additional requirements to make sure that there’s proof that
somebody did the thing that they’re going to be punished for.
And Rod, we made some comments the other night when we were talking about this in
um about other requirements um you want to share some of those rod before somebody
could be punished these other things had to happen to ensure that the innocent
didn’t get punished for something they didn’t do
i don’t remember what comments i made i’m sorry okay you’re talking about how um i
think it was you um how it you know How, you know, the person making the
accusation or, you know, had to be the one that met out punishment. And so that
way, hopefully their conscience would get to them. And so there are many different
things that had to happen to be able to set a proof that somebody did something
before they were punished. So somebody I haven’t really quoted that often,
so I want to introduce him to you, if you’re not aware of him. John Locke, another
individual that was very influential and quoted quite often by the founding fathers.
He was an English philosopher, a physician and a political theorist, natural law,
talked about natural rights, government by consent, separation of powers, the right to
revolt against the tyrannical government. And books of his that you should read are
the two treatises of government. It’s one of his most influential books. And he
wrote, the execution of the law of nature is in that state put into every man’s
hands, whereby everyone has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such
a degree as may hinder its violation. So again, this goes back to the consent of
the governed, right? You can’t give the government the power to punish someone that
you don’t have the right to do yourself. And so you as an individual do have the
right to defend yourself against someone trying to kill you.
You do have the right to defend yourself against someone that is trying to harm
you. You do have the right to punish someone that is trying to rob you,
to steal something from you. And you have that natural right to get restitution.
And so you can then give that power to this government that the civils,
these families that have gathered together have created to be able to protect
everyone’s life, liberty, and property.
But then again, you ask yourself, if I don’t have that right, then I can’t give
that right to government. Okay. So when we are to submit to the governing
authorities, when that government is legitimate, right? And we know a government’s
legitimate, and we talked about this especially when we went over the righteous sword
against tyranny, is when God calls the leader of that government director.
record of that choice has to be, you know, made clear. We have to know who was
chosen by whom, when, all of that kind of stuff, to know that person is
legitimately in charge. And so, but then just because they’re legitimate leaders,
they then, to continue to be so, they have to be servants of God and the people.
If any one, either one of those things are missing, then that person or that body
is not legitimate.
But when they are, when they do fit this, we are bound to obey them.
And so I’m hoping that we start to make sure that we are not falling into a trap
of all government is illegitimate. I can, you know, I don’t like what they’re doing.
And so I’m not going to obey it. It’s not about liking. It’s not about something
that I’m in, you know, that I, that I think is great. It’s, is it legitimate? Do
they have the ability to do so? And there are things, right? There’s all kinds of
things, right? We don’t like paying bills, but we have to because it’s legitimate,
right? If I got power, then I’ve got to pay the power bill whether i like to or
not so it’s not about doing something i like it’s about supporting government that
is legitimate whether i like what they’re doing or not and so this isn’t like we’re
not spoiled brats just saying i don’t like what you’re doing i’m not going to do
what you say i i believe that someone that is disobeying and legitimate government
should be punished
and they should be punished of course in a course
legitimately only when all five of these conditions are met those five are it’s a
real violation of natural law right somebody has done something to violate somebody’s
life liberty or property and that the force is defensive or remedial it’s not
preventative we’re punishing actual evil we’re not managing and preventing we’re not
we’re not involved in pre -crime. It’s only prevent, it’s only remedial.
It’s only, it’s only something that is punishing an action that’s an evil that
somebody has already done or it’s defensive. The force is proportional to the
offense, right? The same punishment for murder should not be applied to theft or to
assault. The accused has due process and there’s proof and the magistrate acts as a
servant not as a master going back to the role of a father they are not tyrants
they are servants that are working hard to serve the people and to protect them and
to make sure that they are safe in their life liberty and property okay and they
elect illegitimate when they restrain the innocent they act without consent or law
right not only do you have to be able to consent right i’ve talked about it before
but i i missed this part of it i forgot to mention this part of it where okay
can i delegate this to government okay i can have i and we can find that right in
the constitution um Not everything that a state could delegate to a general
government was delegated to them. And so we still have to ask ourselves,
not just can I do that, but did I do that? Did I delegate that power to them?
Because like the 10th Amendment says, if we didn’t do it, if we didn’t delegate you
that power, you can’t do it. Even if it’s a legitimate power, right? Legitimate
meaning I can give that to you. But if I didn’t, you still can’t do it. So if
they don’t act with consent or law, they’re illegitimate. Three, they punish without
proof.
That should be self -evident. They prevent, right, a hypothetical future crime to make
sure that nobody builds a bomb in the back of a rider truck.
We’re going to make sure that you are not allowed to buy more than X amount of
fertilizer, right? And so that’s that’s a hype without saying I can’t buy a ton of
fertilizer because I might build a bomb with it. That’s an illegitimate active
government.
Five, serves itself rather than justice. They’re just there to grease each other’s
palms to get deals, and so they become illegitimate. Okay. So I want to look at
some specific applications. How do we see these things in reality?
So legitimate application of force. We want to murder assault, right? A guy kills
somebody else. The magistrate then pursues, arrests, tries, and then punishes the
offender, if they did it. A theft, a merchant somebody’s things are stolen the thief
is then required after doing those same things they’re pursued they’re arrested
they’re tried and they’re found and they’re convicted then they’re required to restore
the value plus a penalty fraud a contractor takes payment and intentionally fails to
deliver restitution and punishment are just okay it’s an example right if somebody if
if if If I get electricity and I don’t pay for it, right, then it is good for
government to punish me and make sure that I do that. Or if I pay for something,
right, but we talk, I’m giving in other presentations, the contractor that builds the
house and adds a pool without permission.
And then I, well, not the pool built something without permission, but I paid him
to build a house and he doesn’t build a house, then I’m entitled to restitution and
punishment. But an illegitimate application of force, give some specific examples,
so we’re not just talking out in the ether, we’re not just talking broad brushes,
but we’re getting down to actual specifics. Speech crimes,
right? Punishing somebody for so -called misinformation, right? Like,
especially during the fake pandemic when people were talking about COVID being fake
or that masks weren’t effective, you know, or that the vaccine wasn’t actually a
godsend that was called misinformation and they people were punished for it.
Or hate speech. If you say something bad about somebody because of their skin color
or something bad because they are sodomite and even calling somebody a sodomite can
be considered hate speech right unpopular opinions no nobody was the old saying
sticks and stones may hurt my bones i mean uh what’s i can sticks and still may
break my bones but names can never hurt me right even if i say the most vile
things to somebody or about somebody somebody that doesn’t hurt them nobody’s life
liberty or property were taken and so they can’t be punished for that possession
you’re right possession crimes that victims right you own an object that has not
harmed anyone i have a gun and it has never itself hurt someone but there are laws
that would say you can’t own that just in case you do do harm someone. And so,
right, you know, and so that’s an example. You’ve done, you’ve owned something or
that there’s a law saying you can’t own that thing because you might hurt someone.
That’s it. That’s illegitimate. Another illegitimate would be pre -crime. Legitimate
application of force would be punishing arson after the fact. You burn a barn. You
find him. you punish him you prove that he’s guilty you punish him and then restore
the barn uh force right if you prove the harm not before though like you can’t say
oh he pulled his arm back and looked like he was going to hit him it didn’t hit
him has to be proof of harm
illegitimate application of force though is the just this pre crime logic where,
right, you lock people down, you don’t let them leave their house, you don’t let
them go to work, you don’t let them go into a store or a restaurant, even though
they’re not sick, right? Healthy people are prevented from doing something in case
they might do something.
Red flag laws, right? Your ability to defend yourself is taken away because you
might commit a crime.
Regulating everyone just to stop if you
you know, this seems unreasonable in this situation, so I’m not going to actually
obey the law. Well, that means the law is illegitimate, and so you need to change
the law.
And then kings consult the people, like as we see in the scriptures, where they
went to the people and they said, this is what I’m going to do or going to,
you know, I’m going to lead the charge and do you guys support this war? So they,
you know, not only was he saying, you know, getting the people’s input, but he was
offering to lead the way, not send somebody else’s sons to fight in a battle.
He didn’t think was worthy to fight in himself. But an illegitimate application of
this, we would find unelected bureaucrats making law. So like IRS bureaucrats making
code, OSHA, making code on their own, just the list goes on and on of these
different agencies that make their own administrative rules that are,
they’re not elected, so they’re not accountable. There’s nothing anybody can do about
those laws because they have, there’s no,
there’s no way to get rid of them. And then we have immunity for officials,
right? Yeah, we’ve heard a lot recently about absolute immunity or qualified immunity
where you get to commit a crime as long as you’re doing it in the commission of
your job.
That’s wrong. Rules that apply to the public, but not rulers.
We saw that during the fake pandemic where you, you know, especially in California,
where they had totally.
to monitor how much water that you’re using, but if this law passes,
the NSA, Facebook data center,
those, that information will be private. There’s, you know, it’s, we have privacy and
you don’t.
So Romans 13 doesn’t mean absolute submission to government authority, whether it’s
the family, the church, or civil society. It’s only when the magistrate is a servant
of God to the people and not an idol or a false God over the people.
So the bottom line is, right, among a free people, government has a legitimate role
to protect life, liberty, peace, and property of the people. And this is done for
the punishment of the guilty, not through restraining the whole to ensure that they
don’t do something, but to provide evidence, provide incentive not to,
through punishment and restitution. And if government goes beyond these protective
roles, it delves into tyranny, which means it’s no longer legitimate, which means we
no longer are obligated to obey it. In fact, we’re obligated to disobey it.
And so, I’m just going back here. So again,
the point is that government, when legitimate, should be obeyed.
And that force is not always bad. Force is necessary to be able to protect life,
liberty, and property. If you don’t have force, if you don’t use force, you will
not be able to protect life, liberty, or property. And so we must support government
in using force when that government is legitimate and continues its legitimacy through
acting legitimate. So with that, let’s go to,
I’ll look at the chat, some comments there, but we’ll also open it up to Q &A or
in comments.
So we look at, I think Dan or Samantha says people are punished for pleading no
contest regularly. Yeah. So in court, you’re given three options.
You can plead guilty, not guilty, and no contest. And so the no contest means
you’re like, I’m not saying I did it, but I’m not going to fight you. I’m just
going to take it and move on with my life. And so people are being punished
without being proven that they did something wrong. It’s crazy.
Okay.
Feel free to use the…
I have a lot to add to what you’ve said here. So the question is when you say
free exercise of conscience, you referred to that as liberty. Is that what? Because
the conscience, the internal process can’t be measured. So is that what that?
Well, the application of your conscience, right? That’s very clear that, right, the
free exercise of religion. So religion would be your conscience, right? But the free
exercise of that religion is your,
And Trump, of course, said, I can do whatever I want to those people because
they’re not legitimate. You know, and he defines that. So that doesn’t mean because
somebody calls them a name, not legitimate. You could go violate all their individual
rights in that country. No, because they’re not over you. So it’s not, you’re not
resisting someone trying to oppress you because they’re not over you. Yes. slander
and liable laws, they kind of fall outside the categories, I think, but they,
slander and liable laws are where people are actually injured from intentional deceit,
potential lies. So I think that’s a legitimate. I’m glad you included fraud.
Fraud hurts people. So it hurts their property and it hurts their reputation,
all sorts of things. So, and libertarian circles, one of the, you can break down
the proper rule of government that you pretty much define tonight in the Declaration
of Independence is no initiation of force or fraud.
All of those are criminal acts and disservice of what you said, breaking it down
into either restitution or increased punishment beyond as a disincentive to not do
that.
If you only restore what you’ve stolen, then that’s an incentive for thieves to
steal. Yeah, I’m going to borrow this until I get caught. Yeah, yeah, that’s,
that’s, yeah, there are two good outcomes, or one, no bad outcome to you steal.
One is you steal, you don’t get caught, you keep the item. The other one is if
you get caught, no, you just return it until you’re no worse off than you put
forward. Yep.
Micah.
I just wanted to use the new tool that was suddenly available to me. I have
nothing to add. Thank you. You’re welcome.
Okay. And you said Romans 13. Yeah. That’s because when you first mentioned that
governments are instituted by God, it’s really important. We don’t interpret it that
misinterpretation of Romans 13 because the government is there. God, God created it.
And so whatever they do, it’s godly. Right. The divine rights of kings, right? Yeah,
I know where you were saying that, of course. Of course. Hopefully, I’ve established
my reputation on that one already. If you were saying that, you didn’t need to say
all the rest of what you said yeah
and one another way of looking at this is a government’s role is solely a negative
role it’s to protect when it uses forces the force it’s using it to protect that
you know as a punishment dissentive forcing restitution things like that so it’s a
negative role as opposed to what most governments have always been, or have been
throughout history, and most of what the U .S. governments do, state and local, well,
especially state and federal, is they have a positive role where they hurt people
and that what they gain during that hurting, like stealing property, they get to
others or they keep someone for themselves or use it for other diabolical purposes.
So it’s important to always say, or for us, see it also that way, government has
no right to do anything other than a negative role of protecting. Yep.
Thank you. Well, let’s go ahead and wrap it up for tonight and have a closing
prayer. And then we can do open forum and we can talk about other subjects.
Bobby, Are you available to give us our closing prayer? Sure. Thank you. Dear kind
and most loving Father in heaven, we by sons and daughters come before this night.
We thank you for the things that have been taught on the principles of liberty and
what legitimate governments are and aren’t. We thank you for the knowledge that has
been shared tonight and for those that have been participating, whether by listening
or by speaking or in any other role that all has called them to do.
Father, we think before the opportunity that we have to live in a place where we
can see these things and be witnesses on the front lines of these changes that are
coming down. Well, please bless us with the sermon to understand that, which we
don’t, and to see how it applies to us and what we can do to be on the right
side of the law with thee, and to stand with thee in all things. We pray for thy
peace upon our hearts and souls and minds, that that will walk with us and help us
to know what you know, and to do those things that you would have us to do. And
these things we ask and pray, according to thy will and according to thy love, in
the sacred and holy name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
