Member training from February 3rd 2024. In this meeting, we discussed the critical role of fathers in maintaining a free society and the importance of morality and religion in governance. We emphasized that without a religious foundation, there can be no true security for life and property, and that morality is essential for good government. Drawing on scriptural examples, Ben highlighted the necessity of strong family structures, where fathers lead by example, instilling values in their children and fostering a sense of community. The conversation also touched on the consequences of absent fathers and the societal implications of undermining traditional family roles, and the importance for a return to foundational principles that support liberty and personal responsibility.
Another interesting book on the subject is “Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization” By Brad Wilcox. You can get your copy by clicking on the title of the book.
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TRANSCRIPT
Father in Heaven, we ask you for your blessing on this meeting tonight.
We ask you to help us to be wise and learn what we need to learn to help fight
this vicious conspiracy that’s dead sent on enslaving all your people with all
mankind. We ask your blessing on our speaker, our leader tonight then,
and give us also the courage to take the knowledge we’ve learned and use it in our
lives to fulfill your law, God, to stand for liberty and freedom and against
security. In Jesus’ name, who perishes? Amen. Amen. Thank you, Mark. Okay,
Carmen, would you give us our minutes for the January 27th?
Well, as soon as I find it again.
Oh, there it is.
Okay.
All righty.
Tree Liberty Society minutes for Monday, January 27th.
The opening prayer was offered by Linda Stowell. Ben commented on an email that he
had sent out that day, talked about the member activity report on Joyce Mitchell,
suggested she said she’s copying and pasting the form onto the calendar to do it
each week. And Ben said that this report will help each person see what can be
done. Training was dusting the feet off and the final warning to civil authorities
and elected officials, and we’re not to treat them as legitimate. Mark said others
want to seat at the table. Ben talked about various…
Well, he said we’re not to engage scriptually with civil magistrates.
He talked about the woman and the unjust judge,
Elijah on the run, where the Lord told Elijah to show himself to Ahab who was
trying to kill him, gave them an opportunity to claim who they serve.
They would not repent the consequences death. Later, Laban was killed when he refused
God after being given two chances. Mormon writes to the chief judge and leaders were
righteous dealing with their own problems and they are not offended by being called
out. A good person in government will respond to what’s going on.
They’re given warnings, the opportunity to do right, and then consequences for not
heeding the warning given to them. Mark talked about Jeremiah courageously,
condemned the Hebrews for pagan worship.
Joyce commented about the January 6th event and how the people were actually lured
onto the lawn, and then false arrests and lives were ruined.
Ben asked if contention was bad, and he answered, he said, about Jesus at the
temple.
And Ben asked, how,
how do you address address authorities, do butter them up. He said, you call out
the leader demanding action and you name the consequences. Mark said they’re implying
they have authority when they have it and are enabling them.
Ben says it’s a form of idolatry when you’re honoring the ungodly. Give voice of
warning. If it’s rejected, you bear testimony. If they don’t receive you, leave a
curse cast off the dust of your feet and the consequences for the action.
The underlying principle that if it’s worse,
you salute it. If it’s worse, worse, if worthy. I’m not sure what I wrote there.
They don’t receive you. If they don’t receive you, leave a cursing, cast off the
dust from your feet. We’re not begging permission. We’re giving one last chance to
repent. God’s will
will still be done. Don’t be concerned about the short term effectiveness.
You can’t be friends with evil. Mark said, “Evil will expose themselves.” Ben said,
“There’s a godly solution at the right time. Shortcuts cause problems.” Jesus warned
them. Then he took the next step by overturning the tables. Mark said Moses had
many trials and lots of work. He could have been killed, but confronting means
courage and persistence.
Alan said it was easier on all is to cut their heads off.
Joyce said, need to have a good inspired consequence. Alan again, piped up and said,
when you turn your lights on, expose them and the rest will flee. Ben said that
all prophets followed the same pattern in killing no murder. It shows the pattern in
that book. Taking the shortcut is longer than doing it right from the get go.
The closing prayer was offered by Bobby.
Wonderful. Thank you, Carmen. Is there any corrections or clarifications that should
be made? Alan sounds like a radical.
You all do.
Who gave the opening fair? I’m sorry. Today? Yeah, just now. Yeah, that was Mark.
Alan, they’re keep robbing the definition of terrorists. So you’re getting,
you’ve got to be getting pretty close to the new definition. Well, I’ve been
embracing it for a long time. – Yeah, well, there’s a lot of laws out there
unconstitutional to do people that are considered terrorists. So be careful.
– I’m ready. – Go ahead, sorry, Carmen. – I’m ready. – Okay. Well, I hope the topic
wasn’t something that turned people off. Hopefully we get some more folks coming on
tonight, but Either way, we’d like to get go ahead and get started. I’ve asked my
son Moses to give the spiritual thought for Tonight so go ahead and make sure you
can
Everyone can hear me
Okay, So, um, usually, or one of the commandments is not lying or not bearing false
witness, and usually we think that applies to everything, but there are many examples
of people lying for God in the Scriptures, and they are rewarded for it.
And so in Exodus 1, 15 it says, “And The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew
midwives of which the name of one was Shifrah and the name of the other Pua,
and he said, “When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew woman, and see
them upon the stools, if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be a
daughter, then she shall live.” But the midwives feared God and did not, as the
king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men and children alive.
“And the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said unto them, ‘Why have you
done this thing?’ and have saved the men sheltering alive. And the midwives said
unto Pharaoh, ‘Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women, for they are
lively and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. Therefore God dealt
well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and waxed very
mightily.’ And it came to pass it because the midwives fear God that he made them
houses so they directly lied to Pharaoh and
Ben’s brought this up before in previous meetings but um another example is in Alma
55 and now it came to pass that Moroni caused that a search should be made among
his men that perhaps he might find a man who was a descendant of Laman among them,
and it came to pass that they found one whose name was Laman. Now Moronai caused
that Laman and a small number of his men should go forth unto the guards who were
over the Nephites. Now the Nephites were guarded in the city of Gid, therefore
Moronai appointed Laman, and caused that a small number of men should go with him.
And when it was evening, Laman went to the guards who were over the Nephites, and
behold they saw him coming, and they healed him, but he said unto them, Fear not
behold I am a Lamanite behold we have escaped from the Nephites, and they sleep and
behold we have taken of their wine and brought with us
Now when the Lamanites heard these words they received him with joy
And it came to pass that they did take the wine freely and it was pleasant to
their taste Therefore they took of it more freely and it was strong having been
prepared in its strength And it came to pass that they did drink and were merry,
and by and by they were all drunken.
And the armies of the Nephites come and they take them prisoner and take their
Nephite captives back. And it was because they lied directly.
And Joseph explains in history of the Church Volume 4, page 479,
The reason we do not have the secrets of the Lord revealed unto us is because we
do not keep them, but reveal them We do not keep our own secrets, but reveal our
difficulties to the world even to our enemies Then how would we keep the secrets of
the Lord? I can keep a secret until doomsday so
one of the other reasons
Um, us not being worthy is the reason we don’t have the mysteries of God or The
secrets of God is because we cannot keep a secret which I thought was very
interesting Thank you Yeah, we see that today a lot of times we’ll hear people say
that you know that That there’s that the distinction between not bearing false
witness versus just flat out always telling the truth, you know, there’s a principle
of it’s not always wise to reveal all truths. Just picture yourself in World War
Two Germany and a Nazi soldier knocks on your door and says, “Are you hiding any
Jews?” And you lie. Do you think God’s going to hold you, you know, He’s going to
condemn you for such a thing? You know, deceiving wicked Tyrants is something that
we see throughout the scriptures being being done. And so it’s important that those
examples of no, that’s another example of nullification that you brought up. So thank
you, Moses. Appreciate that. Any other thoughts.
Just that omission is one of the main main forms of the seed that the conspiracy
members use all the time. And politicians have learned one tactic is to plead
ignorance when they’re not ignorant. Right.
Anybody else?
Juddster, were you going to comment?
What? Oh, I just thought I saw Judster’s camera come up, so I thought maybe you
had a comment. No. Okay. Well, let’s go ahead and get into the bulk of our
training tonight. Make sure I share my sound.
Again, as always feel free to comment ask questions
So if you make a comment in the chat feel free to do so I won’t be able to see
it till afterwards just as a reminder So tonight I wanted to talk about the
importance of fathers in a free society and this you know I don’t know if it
didn’t sound you know might not sound as Sexy I guess as a lot of other things
that we could be talking about, but I felt that it was very important for us to
understand maybe some more practical application, more of the foundational things, kind
of getting back to what I talked about a couple of weeks ago, those where I showed
the example of the in the karate kid, the wax on, you know, how he had him do
all these things to lay a foundation for his talent in being able to win in a
tournament or be able to defend themselves in the future.
And this is one of those things, you know, as we prepare for other things down the
road, it’s important for us to have these foundational principles internalized and
applied. And so I think this is one of those things that are very important for us
to understand is the idea or the importance of fathers in a free society.
And so I want us to ask ourselves, even though it might on its surface, I think
hopefully it does seem obvious, but if it doesn’t, I hope we’ll ask ourselves, how
do these things apply to a free society? Okay, and that goes for both both ways,
right? If doing this, how does that help a free society or how does not doing it
provide for a free or a less free society, whichever the case may be,
that way we’re really getting the context of the point of what I’m trying to reach
tonight. And so that, of course, is that one of those foundational principles is
from George Washington about morality. This is in his farewell address. He says of
all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and
morality are indispensable support. So today that seems to be very, nobody wants to
talk about having morality and religion
mixing with government and the idea of having that as relevant to a free society.
You’ll have some people want to promote the idea of, “Oh, I’m spiritual, not
religious.” But he’s saying, “No, this is a very important principle that we
understand if we want a free society, those foundations of religion and morality.”
And I think we’ll do it, we’ll go deeper into that, in a future training, that
principle. But I want to continue on with what he says. His let it simply be
asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life,
if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of
investigation in courts of justice. So if we look at the Declaration of Independence,
it says the role of government is to protect your God -given rights.
And so he’s asking here is if you don’t have a religious obligation,
there’s no security for your property. There’s no security for your life if we are
not religious. There’s no justice in courts if we’re not religious.
And let us with caution, indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained
without religion. So if you think that you can be moral without religion. He’s
saying that is that is an that is untrue. It is a violation of natural law.
You cannot have one without the other. It is substantially true that virtue or
morality is a necessary spring of popular government.
And so anybody like tells you that you cannot that you can have good government
without religion and morality and virtue, they are undermining good government.
They are undermining free government. And that is the foundation for the topic
tonight. So I want us to have that as well with fathers. And so we get into that
natural law principle that I mentioned in our first boot camp about the ball going
up in the air, right? As gravity brings the ball down, “the father guides what a
society becomes.” It is just, yeah, go ahead. – Make a comment on what you just
said. – Yeah. – We are constantly being told to ignore virtue and honor constantly,
but it’s implicit in their statements because they’re telling us to pay attention and
have all the criteria how to support politicians or both forms and so forth. But
these days, it’s just the opposite of what we saw even 120 years ago.
Honor is of no consideration and who we support and virtue,
but it’s implicitly communicated. Yep, absolutely. They’re they’re inseparably connected.
And so we, we have to understand that actions are as immutable as physical acts of
natural law that you know as much as we can’t see it maybe immediately as we throw
but it the same thing as we throw a ball up in the air it’s going to fall down
the same thing of what fathers are in a society to be able to be free so we go
back to Samuel Pufendorf one of my favorite natural law philosophers well read by
the Founding Fathers in here. Oh, I’ll get into it afterwards.
But in his book, the whole duty of man, which gets into the whole duty of man,
according to the law of nature, he gets this is one of the books that were read
by the Founding Fathers to understand natural law and that it does apply to the
family, as he says, As the our duty He says as a this is a part of natural law
and it applies to the family that hereby Married persons might take the greater
delight in each other’s company and that both might have the more cheerfulness
applied to themselves To the necessary business of propagation. Okay? For those
grammar Nazis out there the capitals in the middle of a sentence, even though it’s
not a proper noun. That’s from the original. So just making sure you know that it’s
not a grammatical error. But Siri says, okay, so it’s a natural law that the
married people get together and they both might with more cheerfulness apply
themselves to the necessary business of propagation. So propagating the species,
having children, is a necessary and natural part of marriage and of human existence.
Marriage is a part of human existence and then having children that all use the
part of the interpretation of cheerfulness. Are they just saying be cheerful during
the process or what does it mean by cheerful apply more to cheerfully apply oh
cheerfulness yeah with more so Without complaint Okay
That all use the parts destined by nature for this work is Contrary to the natural
law if it tends not to this end so it is against Natural law the law of nature
to use that relationship for anything else besides producing children On which account
also are forbidden all lusts for a different species or for the same sex,
all filthy pollutions, and indeed all copulations out of the state of matrimony,
whether with the mutual consent of both parties or against the will of the woman.
So it doesn’t matter either way, it is against the law of nature and of course,
you know, as a Christian, because it’s against the law of God, but he also says
that it’s observable. Everything that he’s going through in here is observable,
that when we violate this law, it leads to the degradation of society,
which leads to the degradation of individual liberty. Man may be such a one as is
fit to become the master of a family. So that is the role that is his natural
that is to be able to have a good society that is the natural course one must
take as the foundation. And so we have natural man,
which is spoken of negatively in the scriptures, and then we have the law of
nature. And so we must distinguish between
We, with the light of Christ, you know, in us, before it is beaten out of us, we
tend towards, you know, the Savior talked about being as little children to not
being childlike, but being something, somebody that is willing to be molded and
working to be molded. And as we follow that light of Christ, that is the direction
we go, as opposed to Childish or natural man tendencies And so we go to the
scriptures teaching these same principles as well this we read in the Bible Low
children are in heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb as his reward as
Arrows are in the hand of a mighty man. So are the children of youth Happy is the
man that has his quiver full of them. So just like Poofendorf talked about we see
see in the scriptures that having children is the natural consequence or the natural
tendency towards man as he is following the laws of nature, laws of God,
and that it is preferable to have, you know, the mighty man has his quiver,
which is the thing that holds your arrows, and so full of them, having as many of
them as you can, is something that leads to happiness and prosperity physically and
spiritually.
Going on in the scriptures without understanding covenant breakers, so this is the
first part of it, going back to the, there’s two principles that Poofendorf talked
about that I’m laying out in these, that we’re showing in these scriptures. The
first one is marriage and children, and the next one is the natural law of
governing marriage. And so the first one, getting into the importance of children,
and this one, understanding unnatural affection. So without understanding covenant
breakers, this is the Apostle Paul prophesying of what things would be like in the
end times. He says, without understanding, they’d be covenant breakers without natural
affection, implacable, unmerciful, without natural, and then we go to Timothy again,
tent without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce,
despisers of those that are good. So we both, we see that without natural affection.
And so this was something they didn’t have to describe. It was something that was
as the founding fathers put it in the Declaration of independence, these were self
-evident truths. We didn’t need to know what natural affection was, but up in Dorf,
because as time goes on, it’s important for us to lay that out, what is natural
affection? And what is, especially within marriage, what does that lead towards? And
so that is leaving that. And then we go to Colossians, fornication, uncleanliness,
inordinate affection, evil
concupiscence and covetousness, which is idolatry. So fornication and inordinate
affection are forms of idolatry You are worshiping the body as opposed to to God
and it’s natural
What’s the word I’m thinking of what those things are made for naturally and abusing
those powers. And so going back to Puthendorf talking about how do we once we
recognize the role of the individual is to get married and then have children. Once
we have children, how do we raise good children? He says now that this care may be
rightly managed. It is requisite or meaning required that they have a power of
ordering the actions of their children for their good because these, meaning the
children as yet, understand not for want of discretion how to govern themselves,
that he may become a fit member of human society. So in modern tongue means that
it’s important, it’s vital that parents train their children at a very young age to
be a benefit to themselves and others since at a young age they don’t know how to
govern themselves without that proper training. It is our duty once we have the
children to train them to be good, godly individuals, self -governing individuals.
Ben, logic follows that we have a responsibility to train the children to be
disciplined and govern themselves, we had that same responsibility with adults who
never learned it. – Right, that’s presupposed, absolutely. – Yeah, and then we’ve got
a big task there because most of the adults haven’t learned it. – Yeah, hopefully,
you know, maybe if we haven’t learned to do that ourselves, we are, we do start to
apply and learn to be self -governing and as we can teach that to our children.
– Yeah, if we’re supporting tyranny, we’re not, They’re not going to be self
-governing. Our leaders and our teachers have done everything they can to destroy
that. Isn’t that funny that we– the people today cater to Dr.
Benjamin Spock on how to raise kids, and they’re not raised.
They turn out to be well in their 20s or 30s, and they still don’t know how to
act in public. – Yeah. – It’s, they destroy as much as they can of the gospel and
what God and the righteous man have supposed how to take care of kids to just
letting them run loose. Yeah And could I share a quote from Brigham young please do
he
said when we conclude to make a Zion We will make it and this work commences in
the heart of each person When the father of a family wishes to make a Zion in his
own house He take the lead in this good work which it is impossible for him to do
unless he himself possesses the spirit of Zion. Before he can produce the work of
sanctification in his family, he must sanctify himself. By this means God can help
him to sanctify his family. There are many families in this community that have
constantly with them the spirit of Zion.
That’s really good. It’s important. We have to cleanse the inner vessel first and
then we can help that as go out from ourselves to others.
Thank you.
So Puffendorf continues on about the duty of parents, consist chiefly of this,
that they maintain their children handsomely and that they so form their bodies and
minds by a skillful and wise education, as they may become fit and useful members
of human and civil society, men of probity, wisdom, and good temper.” Oops,
let me go back.
So we see here that it is, we have to, handsomely, we have to show them, right,
cleanliness is next to godliness, and being unkempt is a part of being self
-governed. And that we, it’s showing with your bodies and your minds a skillful and
wise education and all being well rounded in that, in that aspect and that they may
become fit and useful members of human and civil society. Okay, all those good
temper wise, all of those things we of course have to start with ourselves but our
job is to help the our children at the very earliest of ages, all the way up to
to do these things. And I think it’s interesting that he talks about, uh, maintain
their children handsomely, because that is the foundation. Even before they can
understand what you’re saying, they understand what you’re doing. And if you are
having a priority of making sure that they are, they are kept, they are well kept,
uh, they will see that as something that is self -governing. They want to make sure
that that is something that they are showing by their, you know, their inner self
by their outward appearance. It’s not about trying to show off for other people.
It’s not about putting on a face that you’re something that you’re not. It is a
outward manifestation of an Edward commitment.
So going back to the scriptures, again, teaching the same “He, Bruce, if ye endure
chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father
chaseneth not?” So God, in the Scriptures, we hear that he says,
“He loves whom he chasens.”
And so if we are going to show that same God -like love to our children, a part
of that is chastening them when needed, right? You be proven with sharpness with an
increase of love, so they don’t esteem you to be their enemy. And so that that
chastening is a vital part of love. We’re told today, like it was mentioned,
like Alan mentioned a second ago, that Dr. Spock, right? Just it’s mean to offer
them any direction or course correction, which is the exact opposite of what the
Lord says and what natural. We can see just what the consequences for following Dr.
Spock’s methodology or philosophy today. And so in proverb,
yeah, go ahead. That was also a communicated one in the verse where it says,
“Do not spare the rod.” Yeah, absolutely. “Spare the rod, spare the child,” right?
Which, it was always offensive to me that one of the arguments me and my first
wife had was she thought I was too hard on the kids and so I went to a parent
effective training a third evolution all these stupid classes step team and I would
show the counselor pamphlet that was put out by the church playing talk to parents
and I don’t know if it’s by Orson Hyde or Orson Pratt but here’s people within the
church counselors within the church would rather placate to Dr.
Spock where you don’t have to do anything than to follow one of the apostles in
plain talk to parents how they should raise their kids.
Yeah, and we look at the natural consequences of those actions. It’s clear who’s
right and who’s wrong.
So we continue on to proverbs. We read, “Discipline your children while there is
hope. Do not set your heart on their destruction.” So not disciplining your children
leads to their destruction. And it says before there is hope, while there is hope.
So meaning that you have to start very young. Otherwise, they’re gonna get to a
point where the course correction is more difficult. The longer you wait,
the more difficult the course correction is. And of course, I think it should be
said without saying that just because you follow Cret principles doesn’t mean all of
your children are going to turn out right. We have example after example of
righteous patriarchs in the scriptures that have children that turn away from the
teachings of their fathers. They have their agency and ability to do so. But these
are the, these, if we stick to these principles as a whole,
society as a whole will maintain that civilness and the liberty that is necessary.
So Proverbs, again, folly is bound up in the heart of a boy, but the rod of
discipline drives it far away. So
we see here that this isn’t a contradiction of, you know, spare the rod,
spoil the child. It’s, I think, going on with what I was saying earlier of Be
proving time with sharpness with an increase of love afterwards that we don’t just
beat beat beat But we we correct we course correct and then we make sure that they
know that we’re not their enemy Then Proverbs 22 is yeah, go ahead. Yeah point you
made a second ago in psychology We call it the nature versus nurture argument. Yeah
To explain a behavior and of Of course, nurture means it’s the environment and the
family has a major role there on how the child turns out, but there are nature,
excuse me, that’s a nurture, but there are nature, people born with all sorts of
reasons why they turn out bad, a lot of it’s psychological psychosis,
things like that, that had nothing to do with the parents raising of the child?
– Well, I don’t know. I never stopped raising my kids. I keep telling them that I’m
gaining more momentum on retroactive birth control than I ever have in my life.
– Well, that’s horrible for a lot of reasons.
(laughs)
You support terrorist taxes? You support abortion? (laughs) – No, no. – Let’s hear No,
no, I don’t support abortion. I support retroactive birth control Well,
as we’ve seen neither one of those is is appropriate or godly so let’s go ahead
and continue on Proverbs 22 Husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the
church and gave himself for it So what men to love their wives as their own bodies
he that love with his wife, love with himself. Nevertheless, let every one of you
in particular so love his wife, even as himself, and the wife see that she
reverence her husband. Okay, so this is a little bit not as clear,
maybe openly obvious what how this is relevant. So I want to ask your input,
what, how is this relevant to the overall topic? Any thoughts
Nobody how does a husband loving a wife help to raise children which then makes
society better and freer
Well, he sets an example for his children
to You know love his wife, and then in turn the wife sets an example of
how she is to honor the massive job that her husband has.
And it’s a massive job.
It’s not easy, and he’s got a lot of things to consider, and,
you know, he doesn’t wake up in the morning, I’m sure he doesn’t wake up in the
morning and say, “What can I do today so I can screw my kids up for the rest of
their life?” You know, they don’t do that. They’re human and, you know,
everybody makes mistakes and,
you know, and you can’t assume that you can read your husband’s mind or your wife’s
mind and you know you get it’s a fine
a fine line to try out trod if we if we do the best we can it sets an example
of our heavenly father and his love for us if we can show our kids that by loving
their mother That we still that we love them that that brings the whole thing of
heaven Down to their understanding It helps in and showing God’s government by the
way, we treat the wife Absolutely to some extent this is the golden rule towards
your wife on kind of on steroids Yeah, there’s much of this in here is the golden
rule of love love others you love yourself absolutely if then go ahead sorry okay
so I I have a thought that I mean not be true in in every home but I think the
father the way that he loves his wife.
It allows the mother to love her children more effectively.
I don’t know, I just think that because then she the husband can help her feel her
worth and that trickles down to the children and then she can help the children
feel their worth and just be a more effective mother like all around I guess.
Part of training to set in a good example. So if he’s loving his wife you set in
a good example for her for the children. If she has respect for him because he
loves her then she’s going to teach that respect to the children and that’s going
to lead into their being obedient and and then taking to the the training that
they’re receiving. And it also goes back to what Pufendorf Pufendorf said the natural
course of man is to is to get married and so if we’re sitting a bad example of
marriage and we’re not we’re abusing our wives or we’re not loving them in the way
that the Lord would have us then we are showing that marriage would be miserable
and not something that they would want to enter into therefore stunting and shunting
the natural course of human existence. And so it’s very important part of the big
picture of how a man treats his wife.
One other thought maybe is that love really is an act of selflessness.
So truly loving your spouse and truly loving your children require selflessness,
and one of the characteristics of being civic -minded is putting others above
yourself. So that, that act of being selfless also translates into civics and how
you, I guess, how you deal with other people, how you think about your country,
your nation.
Yep, you know, you can turn that around. It’s really an act of selfishness. You
value your wife tremendously. So you want to do what’s necessary to communicate that
value and and help the family and help her as well. So in a way,
it’s really a selfish act, which is just like I think that’s a really important
people realize that It’s not true altruism when you give your part of your life
your effort, your labor, your mind to something. It’s that you value highly.
Well, and that goes back to expression of value to a great extent for expression of
love. Sure. And we go back to what Corey was saying, of me of what Carmen talked
about, you know, how a man, even if he is treating them badly, they’re not meaning
to. It’s not on purpose. It goes back to the wicked selfishness of they’re just,
they’re not thinking about the things around them. They’re not thinking about their
children, not thinking about their wives. They’re just thinking about themselves and
what they need to be doing. And so it’s important for us to have that, have that
reverse reversed of focusing that on narcissism self -centeredness right is a person
that’s not going up in most cases yeah poorly and religiously yep in today’s society
if you’re happily married something’s wrong with you we’ve drifted so far into evil
and so far into doing things against God that retroactive birth control sounds like
those are the only remedy. That’s a horrible idea. We should train them up in the
way that they should go. Let’s go ahead and instill the importance of a good
reputation. That’s also an important thing. Again, the world has twisted this into
of trying of saying that if you care what other people think about you then you’re
not moral and you’re not principled but this is the different this is not
sacrificing correct principles for people to like you this is meaning the good
reputation means your actions have been as such where people want to you know be
around you they want to emulate you they want to have you around them because
you’re a good example to them, not because you’ve capitulated to whatever they want.
So we need to make sure and understand those distinctions. Samuel Pufendorf says,
“Simple reputation amongst the people in their natural liberty consists chiefly of
this, that by their behavior they have the honor to be esteemed and treated with as
good men ready to comport themselves in society with others according to the
prescription of the law of nature. The foundations of a solid reputation generally
include all kinds of qualities, whether they truly possess or are believed to possess
some great excellence and perfection. These qualities tend to align with the laws of
nature. A society and examples include a quick and sharp wit, the ability to
understand various arts and sciences, sound judgment and business, a steady spirit
that remains unaffected by external events. So going back to the idea, you don’t
just go along with the crowd, you have a steady spirit that does the right thing
no matter what, and being equally immune to flattery, flattery, and fear, that’s what
leads to a real, not a counterfeit, but a true good reputation, eloquence,
beauty, and wealth also contribute, but most importantly, performing good and brave
actions. So Samantha, you got your hand raised, go ahead. – Yeah, I don’t know if
you’re gonna get into this, but I mean, obviously when you can govern yourself,
there’s the fruits of happiness that come from that. You enjoy the blessings that
God gives you. And then you’re able to govern a family and extend that to them
because they learn those principles. But this is talking about a good reputation and
being esteemed and why is that good? It’s huge because it allows you to have the
respect of more people around you, which allows you to affect more good. Because if
you are a man of honor or a woman of integrity, people will look to you,
especially when things get hairy in emergencies or just tough situations. You can be
someone that people know that they can rely on and trust in these difficult
situations because you’ve already proven yourself as such and steady and whatever it
is that people really look to. So it’s a really like this is your good reminders
that we don’t just affect ourselves that there’s a lot of people looking at us. And
in the coming days, I really hope that that we can be the kind of people that
others will esteem and look at us as having a good reputation and being wise and
you know having forethought and and that we can have more effect as things you know
as as as you know decisions are going to be need need to be made and leaders are
going to need to be chosen that we can be the leaders and the communities where we
are and have more influence than we would otherwise. – Absolutely. – Ben,
let me give a little different take on this. The first paragraph, it’s really not
clear until they get to the last phrase there according to the prescription of law
of nature. So they’re talking about reputation among who and they’re talking about
people that prescribe to the law of nature so that suggests they’re good people. But
for example gangsters and criminals and murderers that are part of a criminal
syndicate their reputation is based on evil conduct to a large extent.
And we don’t care about what they think about us that’s the kind of person we
don’t care about. Yeah that’s that’s kind of important We don’t want reputation, a
good reputation among bad people. That’s the whole thing, right? You can judge a
person by the company they keep, right? Yes. And also important here is that if
we’re looking to have a highly -valued reputation among people, we may be neglecting
God. God is the being who our reputation is most sacred and important.
Oh, for sure. So we should never compromise gaining a good reputation at the cost
of surrendering God’s law or violating God’s law. Hopefully that’s self evident and
put in and it’s he lays it out maybe not so succinctly and and specifically but
hopefully it’s it’s it’s clear that – Yeah, it’s implied in the certainly second
paragraph. – Yeah, so why are eloquence and beauty that doesn’t that seem superficial?
Why does that matter for your rep for a righteous reputation?
Any thoughts?
– Well, those are high godly human qualities to value both and display that kind of
conduct.
So it’s again that outward manifestation of your inward commitment. Yes, of who you
are on the inside, because it’s hard to judge what who you are without watching you
for a long time. And so it helps people to be able to see that immediately. So
going back to the scriptures proverbs, a good name is rather to be chosen than
great riches and loving favor, rather than silver and gold. So again,
you’re not looking for the praise of men. You want to have a good name amongst the
godly. And so, getting to the next point, his father is responsible for children’s
spouses. Now, this is maybe controversial in today’s world, but I think that society
bears it out. Ofendorf says, “And as the father ought not to turn his child out of
his family, While he stands in need of education and assistance from him without the
most weighty reason So you’re responsible for your kid until they’re ready to go off
on their own unless something crazy is going on The guy is just ungovernable
whatever So also ought not the son or daughter leave the parents house without his
consent So a child shouldn’t leave until their parents are ready to you know have
consented and said yes, you are ready to go out on your own. Since it much
concerns parents, what persons their children are married to, and from whom they are
to expect grandchildren, hence it is a part of a filial duty herein to comply with
the will of the parents and not to marry without their consent. Wow, that’s, you
know, today’s world, that’s, you know, that’s, wow, that’s so controlling, that’s so
bad. But we see that as an example that’s borne out in the scriptures,
and I’ll talk about it as we move on tonight, what the result is for rejecting
this natural principle. Throw a ball up, it comes down. If we don’t obey this,
what happens? We see the same thing. We see it with the ancient patriarchs that
they honored this principle. We’ll talk about Jacob. This is in Genesis and Jacob
loved Rachel and said, “I will serve thee to her father Laban, seven years for
Rachel thy younger daughter.” And Laban said, “It is better that I give her unto
thee than that I should give her to another man, abide with me.” And Jacob served
seven years for Rachel and they seemed unto him, but a few days for the love he
had for her. And Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife for my days are fulfilled.
So Jacob recognized Laban. He didn’t try and you know,
elope, he didn’t try and say, Hey, you know, Rachel, let’s just let’s just go off
your dad’s being unreasonable. He says, No, this is what the rule is. And I want
to marry you. I’m going to follow the requirements of your father.
And we know that even after he did that, Laban said, you got to do it again
another seven years because I gave you my older daughter first, now you got to work
seven more years for the wife that you asked for originally. And did Jacob say, oh
man, you broke the deal? No, he recognized the father’s role to be able to be
responsible for their children. And it was up to him when he was going to give up
his child to another man to leave the family. Yeah, got your hand raised.
Go ahead. Yes. However, Joseph Smith did it loop with Emma. Sure.
And also, there’s a guy who I don’t remember his name,
but he did a
short thing and he said that he knew this man from the army that just did
everything with every woman and stuff you know was a womanizer in that and when he
had a daughter he went to him and asked him what can I do so my daughter will
stay away from men like you and he said make sure that she knows you love her and
treat her like she should be treated or else when she gets when she wants to be
loved because she’s not getting it from you some other guy will come along and tell
her he loves her when all he wants to do is use her and she’ll believe him.
So fathers are very important to raise their daughters to be to
be able to be To not be fooled by men that are just trying to use them.
Yeah Thank you. Yeah, and these are about as society rejects these principles as a
whole what happens to that society. So, Mark, you had your hand raised as well.
– Yes, what you were saying just a moment ago, and then it’s consistent with Jacob’s
racial message here, is that don’t turn your child out, your son, your daughter,
until they’re ready to be turned out. So, the audaciousness of this, they’re saying
that this wisdom is above government’s wisdom ’cause government tells us once they
turn 18, they’re ready to be turned out whatever it’s the age that decides whether
they should be turned out or not not their the conduct of their maturity and yeah
this idea they turned 18 k get out of the house yeah shan you got your hand
raised um uh my i was i’m a little bit late with this with some of the commentary
but uh what was just shared there was a quote by uh david on the k that has
already essentially been expressed numerous times and it goes something to the effect
he said bothers the greatest gift you can give your children is a loving
relationship with their mother and that’s always impacted me as something observably
pretty potent and true I believe. Yeah, Thank you.
Okay so now we go to the conspiracy to avoid this as They’ve removed fathers and
now mothers from the home, right? We just it became common for women to work
outside the home Starting in the 50s 60s. Maybe even World War two of you know,
all the men were off and so they have Rosie the Riveter But then it really
compounded starting in the 70s and 80s, and we’ve talked about that in previous
trainings. But we don’t really remember because outside of most of our lifetimes,
prior to the early 1900s, you go back to the early 1800s and prior to that,
it was fathers were also working in the home. And it wasn’t until the late 1800s,
early 1900s with the Industrial Revolution that removed the father from the home. And
so it has been the goal of the conspiracy to remove the parents from the home one
at a time, because of course it was easier with the father because it’s his duty
to care for and make sure that the family is provided for. And they made it easier
and in some ways, harder to be at home and bring them outside of the home to
provide for their families. And so that has been a purposeful effort to be able to
destroy the family by taking the fathers out of the home as much as it was to
take the mothers from the home in more recent history. And so I want to show this
clip of a larger presentation about what is it, what is the natural consequence of
having fathers Not in the not in the home either through mayor either through
because of you know, divorce generally speaking them being not there at all or
People that were just immoral people that fornicated and don’t have a husband and a
father with the children or be just even more Generally speaking what we see today
of even with fathers out of the the home for work Do you know what that’s what’s
a welfare system did too. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. The welfare system made it so
women didn’t have to have a husband. They could just have babies and the more
babies they had, the more money they got. And I graduated over 50 years ago that
there was a girl that was my age that went and got pregnant because she didn’t
want to live in her mother’s house anymore. And if she had a baby, the state would
give her a plate, you know, an apartment and the food and all that kind of stuff.
So basically, welfare took fathers and broke up families a lot.
Yep. Another contributing factor for sure. – Not only welfare, welfare, that’s a very
good point, but also just destroying the economy to the extent that an average
household to have the same lifestyle that they had 50 years ago or 80 years ago,
two bread earners is required. But you had that quote from Aaron Russo that you
played. I don’t know if it was at a training where he talked about the Rockefeller
saying that the reason they want the women the whole feminist movement was based on
that principle we want the women working at another tax source was one of the
reason but one thing that I’ve seen in my experiences in the 50s and 60s there
were a lot of women patriotic organizations and they slowly got smaller and smaller
and disappeared as the culture change where women are working you know women are
there’s more women in colleges than than men and you see a lot of a lot of this
so that’s also you can’t fight this the conspiracy to a very good extent while
you’re working the machine in the factory so that’s another reason to get the women
out to get rid of those kinds of patriotic organizations where educated people work
thank you yep okay Okay, I’m gonna play this clip where she discusses the statistics
of meaning the consequences for violating the principles we’ve talked about. Girls
with no fathers in the home have lower self -esteem. Okay, fine, that sucks, but
also women with low self -esteem are more promiscuous. No father family is more
likely to be victims of abuse, especially with single Mothers. Single mothers tend to
be more predatory. But either way, there’s violence and abuse.
And this is sexual and physical. We know this. Children with high BMI more often
come from fatherless homes. Here’s something interesting. More– say that word. I
can’t say it. I’ll throw it to her. Thank you. Fathers have the fittest children.
The more opportunities a child has to interact with biological fire, the less likely
they are to commit a crime or have contact with a juvenile justice system. Okay,
another way to say that is men and women who are incarcerated, the population of
the prisons mostly encompass fatherless homes. Now here’s something that no one else
has mentioned, which I think is cool, and I don’t really say this eloquently. If a
man and wife raise a child, they’re less likely to end up in jail, but they have
the same statistical chance as children raised by just their father.
So if we want to keep children, adults, out of prison,
mother, father, or just father. Well, we don’t want to hear “just father,” so let’s
try to keep the families intact. I think that just– Pretty interesting how important
a father is to keeping children out of that system and the other examples of what
happens when a child doesn’t have a father in their home. And so– [INTERPOSING
VOICES] Very powerful evidence to that. In California, they did an assessment of the
death
that were set, you know, murdered and so forth. And virtually, I think it was like
99 % or something like that were from fatherless homes. And another point we’re
talking about welfare was brought up. The aid to families with dependent children was
altered a little bit during the Clinton administration, but only a little bit. They
actually punished the mother and they won’t give welfare if there’s a father in the
home. And many of my clients, I used to see this where the father would have to
sneak into the home to see the kids or be there and they did all sorts of things
to try to keep it as Quiet that the father shows up at all because they will lose
their welfare So the government was actually set up to an incentive to ensure that
the father won’t be in the home Because they want to destroy society. Yeah, that’s
right Absolutely, so yeah, go ahead
Isn’t that the pattern that we have here on earth is we deal with our father in
heaven
directly not not even though we know that there is a heavenly mother. We don’t
really She’s not directly Yeah, so we have that pattern so that that is
Yep. Thank you. So we ask ourselves, what would the world look like if more men
lived up to these eternal truths? Can you just imagine how different society would
be if we saw these things and we applied them as a general rule? How would this
affect our liberty?
You know what this is?
In our war There’s we’ve had several men that work at the boys home boys who are
they’ve been in jail, but they’re They’re in juvie. Yeah some what and some of
those boys They’ll ask them what they want in life and they’ll say they want to go
to such -and -such prison Because their dad is there their uncles are there and we
want to be with our family. That’s how important fathers are. Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So real quick, the things that we focused on that I covered, I got most of it
from, obviously, the scriptures. And then this book by Samuel Poofendorf, but it’s
the whole duty of man, according to the law of nature. And then, Then Corey
mentioned this one, but also I had this being before he said that, highly recommend
the discourses of Brigham Young. He shows the duty of a father,
husband, man, and we follow those principles. This is not right. We start in the
very beginning with George Washington explaining that you cannot separate good
government. You cannot separate liberty from religion and morality. You cannot separate
those two from each other and you cannot separate them from government. And that is
why they have worked so hard to destroy the mother and the father in the home.
That is why they’ve worked so hard to separate morality and religion from government,
because they know that if they can that they can have give us the situation that
we’re in today. What we see today is the natural consequence. There There’s no other
outcome that could have happened from rejecting those principles than what we see
today. And so if there’s anything that we’ve seen tonight that we fail in,
it is, you know, it doesn’t do us any good to just learn these things and say,
“Hey, that’s true. I’m hoping that I can become more in line with these things.
I’ve seen my own life. This isn’t an attack on women or on single mothers or
whatnot. This is an attack on, this is me exposing the principles that the
conspiracy has done to do these things. I’ve seen the consequence in my own life.
My parents were divorced at a very young age. I got into lots of trouble. I got
bad grades in school. I got into lots of trouble and as a teenager and that
doesn’t take responsibility away from myself but we can see what, you know, that was
by design by removing fathers from the home. And we can see that, I think anybody
that has that same thing, they can see that in their own lives and in lives of
those around us. And so my focus on this is to help us to see,
here’s the correct principle, how am I failing in it? How can I do better this day
forward? Not to make excuses, but to say this is true. How can I do better moving
this day forward? How can I become this because that’s how we that’s what this is
one of the ways that we fight the conspiracy not just exposing it But we get
married we have children we raise them to the Lord and we Have them be the kinds
of people that will help produce a righteous society That will not allow the
conspiracy to exist and that they can be good influences on others to then lead
more people to be doing the right thing. So we are over time. So let me we’ll get
to the comments after the prayer and we can have more comments on this. I
apologize. If we can have a closing prayer,
have Corey, if you’re available, Corey Schmidt, would you be willing to say the
closing prayer for us?
Sure. Thanks.
Heavenly Father, we’re grateful this night to have been taught the truth and to have
been reminded especially us as fathers of our role and how critical our role is for
our families. We pray that that would be with us, inspire us, direct us,
chastise us, and help us repent of the things that need to be corrected.
We pray that we can be examples to those around us to help them also understand
these principles. We pray that we can share those things with the Spirit and with
love.
We ask that Thou would bless Ben in his efforts and all that he does, to further
liberty. And we offer this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Amen. Thank
you.
