Responsibilities of UCRP Precinct Officers and Delegates

by Candace Salima | 25 March 2016

The Precinct Chair and Vice Chair are both members of the County Central Committee and are expect to attend quarterly meetings. Precinct chairs serve as state and county delegates; precinct vice chairs serve as county delegates (the chair or vice chair may choose to vacate his delegate seats and put them in the delegate pool to be filled by others). Precinct officers should hold regular meetings with their precincts; help keep their constituents informed by sending email updates, distributing literature and encouraging caucus attendance; receive input from the precinct; and help get out the vote. The Precinct Chair fills all vacancies by appointment. 

The Precinct Secretary provides notice of meetings, prepares agenda, credentials attendees, and takes minutes.

The Precinct Treasurer receives donations, accounts for them, and relays them to the county party treasurer.

State Delegates are expected to vet all candidates whose elections are decided at the state convention, which include federal representatives and senators, Governor, Auditor, State Treasurer, and Attorney General. State representatives and senators whose legislative districts do not lie entirely within the county, when their terms are up for re-election. They are to attend the State Convention once during the year of their two-year term.

County Delegates are expected to vet all candidates whose elections are decided at the county convention, which include state representatives and senators whose legislative districts lie entirely within the county, County Commissioners, Assessor, Attorney, Clerk/Auditor, Record, Sheriff, Surveyor, and Treasurer, when their terms are up for re-election. They are to attend the County Convention once during each year of their two-year term.

Vetting Candidates: There is no better way to get to know a candidate's views and character than to ask them questions in person and get their answers in person and in small-group settings. This is the best part of our delegate process. Candidates could not possibly meet every voter, but it is usually possible to meet every delegate. Other methods include: reviewing the candidate's website and reading all materials that are mailed and emailed to you; scrutinizing voting records (if available); attending meet-the-candidate events and debates; and listening to speeches. Be sure to provide good contact information and check your email regularly.

Central Committee Meetings: These are for Precinct Chairs and Vice Chairs, Steering Committee members, Legislative District officers, and elected officials. Central Committee meetings are usually held on Saturday mornings at a school within the county. They usually start at 9:00 a.m., but you  must arrive early in order to be credentialed to vote in the meeting and to be counted present. At these meetings, important decisions are made about the operations of the Utah County Republican Party such as: the content of our Party Platform, Constitution and Bylaws (rules); and how donations to the party are spent. It is very important that both the precinct chair, vice chair and county delegates represent their precinct at these meetings.

Resigning from a delegate position: Please do not run if you know you cannot fulfill the duties. If for some reason, after you're elected, you find you are unable to continue, you can resign and be replaced. Your neighbors will appreciate not losing their representation. Send an email to the Party Secretary and your Precinct Chair (as a courtesy, please carbon copy your District Chair). The Precinct Vice Chair automatically takes the place of a Precinct Chair that has resigned. All other offices and delegate seats are replaced by the Precinct Chair.

Questions or Suggestions: Please visit the county party website or contact a party officer. Your questions and suggestions are welcome! Thank you again for your willingness to serve.

The Challenge of Socialist Thought

This is a secular view on the socialism phenomena on the rise in America. For me, I cannot believe that Bernie Sanders pulled in 12,000 people who support socialism within the state of Utah.

Noel B. Reynolds

Brigham Young University - Provo, nbr@byu.edu

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALIST THOUGHT

Noel B. Reynolds, author and copyright holder

Presentation at the International Mont Pelerin Society Conference Berlin, Germany, September 16, 1982

ABSTRACT:

This presentation points to socialists’ mistaken assumptions of a malleable and perfectible human nature as an insuperable reason for the inevitable failure of socialist systems. It also points to socialist and liberal dependence on declarations of human rights as ineffective protections for human freedom—protections which can only be maintained in constitutionalist systems with deeper structural safeguards against tyranny.

KEY WORDS:

Socialism, theories of human nature, rule of law, constitutionalism, declarations of rights, tyranny, liberty, political liberty

Socialism in its various formulations was proposed historically as a simple and direct solution to the problems of human misery and exploitation. The present extent of socialism owes a great deal to its early ability to provide a moral vision to a rootless intellectual class that had forgotten the eighteenth century arguments for constitutionalism and was willing to reshape the world to fit romantic and unproven notions of government and social organization.

It is worth noting in passing that it is the seductiveness of its moral and intellectual simplicity which constitutes socialism's danger to the naive. For even among the great intellectuals there have been many who have not been able to understand (as Adam Smith did) the surprising complexity of human social relations which makes a programmatic pursuit of positive social goals virtually impossible. Indeed, it is far more intellectually demanding to understand an economy in terms of a pervasive invisible hand mechanism than as a direct and successful expression of human will. And it is much more satisfying for some to explain human misery in terms of the evil intentions of powerful and wicked people than to see it as an unintended result of restrictions on freedom, including even those possibly intended to aid the miserable. Many simply are unable to grasp the fact that human society cannot be shaped and changed at will. They do not see that man has a contrary nature which labors night and day in unpredictable ways to undermine and circumvent the best laid plans of social designers and gods. Rather, they implicitly assume simplistic models of man and society which make it impossible for them to believe that a governmentally mandated redistribution of incomes and goods could result in reduced material welfare for almost all.

There are other ironies as well between socialist theory and practice which might help alert honest thinkers to these weaknesses of socialist thought. Whereas one common socialist objective is to enhance human dignity, the opposite more often results in socialist societies. For what dignity has a man who cannot choose his own purposes, but must instead submit his very life to the official quest for material and social welfare? How can you raise a man's dignity by stripping from him his agency and the only means by which he can preserve his independence of thought and purpose? How can you dignify by dehumanizing?

Socialist thought assumes an idealistic human nature, but socialism deforms that which is good in men by undercutting individual initiative. Socialist rhetoric promotes various strong programs for human rights, while simultaneously depriving individuals of their property, the very basis of individual human rights as has long been recognized in most legal systems. Socialism, furthermore, rejects law as an institution which can guide and protect men in the orderly pursuit of their individually chosen ends, sanctifying instead the state imposed ends of materialistic humanism and preventing by force the vigorous pursuit of any other (and probably better) ends that individuals or groups might choose for themselves.

From an even broader perspective we can note another irony of history. For the prophets and theoreticians of socialism have always been most impractical men, dreamers and romantics, driven by an optimism that has never yet borne good fruit. Confident that their vision of the good is true, they propose to nationalize the pursuit of the good. Meanwhile, the great architects of constitutional government have ever been practical men, pessimistic of any great results, and always fearful of the worst. But their cautious efforts have helped provide millions with both the freedom and the means to pursue their personal dreams and romantic visions.

These comments provide a broader introduction than time will allow me to develop. But I will pursue in some detail two essential points.

1. The catastrophe of socialist thought lies not so much in its moral vision as in its empirical assumptions. For it assumes not only that material equality is a morally desirable state of affairs, but also that man is a malleable and perfectible being, and that the manifestations of selfishness and pride which we observe daily in capitalist society are due primarily to imperfect or even downright iniquitous social institutions which cause us to misbehave. This optimistic view of human nature (which is almost never explicitly acknowledged by socialist thinkers) underlies their claims that (1) they can change man by reforming faulty social institutions, and that (2) the natural harmony and cooperativeness now dormant in the human breast will blossom under the beneficent influence of socialist institutions, redeeming an otherwise intolerable world.

The Anglo-American enlightenment embraced a much more conservative view of man as a corruptible being. This was not the same as the view of Christian philosophers that man is by nature fallen and evil. Nor was it like the assumptions of modern economics that all men persistently and rationally pursue their individual self-interest--though it was sympathetic to each of these. Rather it was a complex view--a mixture of optimism and pessimism--which underlay 18th century republican thinking. It was a theory which first of all recognized the heavy dependence of free institutions on a pervasive and high level of public virtue, the willingness of people to respect the rights of others and contribute to the maintenance and operation of public institutions, not out of fear or calculated self-interest but out of a belief that it was right to do so. Secondly, however, this more conservative view recognized the corruptibility of human nature, that public virtue was undependable, especially in those cases where individuals had the opportunity to exploit government power for personal gain. Rulers or aspirants to rule are too often easily tempted to rationalize or forget the moral lessons of youth as they pursue their own self-interest, even to the point of knowingly injuring innocent others or violating law and morality.

Without some government, the virtuous would be at the mercy of the ruthless and unprincipled. Yet government itself provides the greatest opportunities for ruthless exploitation. The optimistic side of republican thought was therefore based on the insight that, given a largely virtuous population, considerable freedom might be possible under a carefully restrained government. Under such constitutional government men could reasonably pursue their own visions of the good.

From this point of view we can see that the twin errors of socialist thought are:

1. Ignoring the essential nature of constitutional limitations on government power because of the assumption that man is perfectible and the wise will do good--and with more power will do more good, and

2. Presuming to define for all men the vision of the good which they should seek. It is assumed that the State can provide this vision for all if each will perform his or her assigned task. If socialists are wrong about human nature, we might expect that their experimentations with government will have worse results in terms of their own values than a constitutional approach would have. From this argument we can then see the priority of empirical over moral premises, an insight quite commonly ignored in socialist thought. But any political or moral view which people are willing to apply to human populations must also be examined for empirical assumptions. It is not enough to make moral arguments for equality. Socialists also need to argue for its possibility. They may then come to appreciate the law of unforeseen consequences, the insight that the most important consequences of social reforms will almost never be the ones intended. If human nature is such that socialist forms of government produce negative equality relative to capitalist forms, what can be the moral argument for persisting in socialist programs? Of course, in practice we can see the self-interest of socialist rulers at work. But we might hope some socialist thinkers would have less at stake.

I feel it is very important that you understand that the particular conflict I have described between the assumptions of socialist and constitutionalist thought is an empirical matter. It is a difference of view about how men generally will behave, especially when in possession of power. It is not necessarily a difference of morals, about how people ought to treat one another. Rather, it is perfectly possible that a man be a constitutionalist and believe in the moral correctness of material equality, if his empirical view of man argues that applied socialism will actually produce much less equality than will a constitutional approach to government.

We can now see that some constitutional structures designed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have not been adequate to deal with the socialist challenge. The discovery by the many that government can be used to redistribute wealth and the discovery that inflation can be used to finance further benefits combine to present us with some very real needs for reforging our constitutions, our agreements on procedures for making policy decisions. Though most of these procedures of the past have proven remarkably resilient, we need to realize that a constitution is an ongoing project. It may need occasional readjustment as major changes occur in the economy or in the structure of social beliefs. In the United States today we have lost our earlier implicit agreement not to resort routinely to deficit spending. To provide politicians with some neutral support in returning to sound fiscal management, a new constitutional articulation may be necessary. Through the dedicated efforts of some members of this society and others it now appears that we may be able to amend our constitution to remedy this weakness.

So my first point has been that socialist thought generally fails to start at the beginning with the question of possibility. What is human nature like, and what social possibilities exist for man? By going straight to the moral issues of what society should be like socialist thinkers implicitly assume a perfectible human nature that can be cured of its iniquities under the tutelage of proper social and economic institutions.

2. My second point will be that declarations of rights or moralistic political principles count almost for nothing in constitutions. The eighteenth century French declaration, the U.N. Declaration and the Soviet constitution are examples of that. Rather, it is only institutional devices that can provide protection for our freedoms in a constitution. And these work only to the extent that the people are attentive and use the institutional devices to resist encroachments on their rights.

But the essence of a constitution is nothing more than the agreed upon procedures and accompanying rules for settling future disputes and questions of policy. Because we need community decisions and because we cannot expect to agree on all future cases, we find it necessary to agree on the future means by which our disputes will be settled, thus committing ourselves to possible acceptance of policies that we do not like.

The American founders followed the English example in complicating the process of government decision making to the point that it would be almost impossible for a tyrant to use the government efficiently to exploit the people. But over time we have found shortcuts and carved loopholes to make government more efficient and it has great control over our lives as a result. It is these modifications which now cry out for remedy, even by constitutional amendment if necessary.

As has already been pointed out, it is very important that constitutional reform not attempt to deal directly with policy issues, but only with the institutional structures and rules concerned with policy decisions. It is true that many socialist elements have been introduced into capitalist states through policy decisions rather than through constitutional changes. In most cases implicit constitutional rules have been compromised. These developments create a need to reconsider the matter and even look at the possibility of reaffirming those rules explicitly or creating better ones by constitutional amendment.

But socialist constitutions carefully avoid these kinds of complications in the decision making process. Government must be able to decide important matters quickly and authoritatively and implement them efficiently that the social welfare not suffer from inattention or dawdling. The result, of course, is not what socialist rhetoric would prepare us to expect.

Please allow me in closing to share one personal anecdote which sums the matter up in my mind. Many years ago I visited Prague, the once proud and beautiful capital of Czechoslovakia. For various reasons I suddenly decided to leave early and found that I could catch a Pan Am flight if I could get to the airport in one hour. I threw my luggage together, paid my hotel bill and rushed out to the street to find a taxi. At first I was relieved to see four shiny black state owned taxis parked nearby. But as I looked around I realized that the drivers were even further away playing cards and trying very hard to pretend they had not noticed my very obvious presence. My heart sank as I saw the impossibility of securing the very great cooperation that would be needed from one of them to get me to that plane on time.

But just as dismay began to register, I was startled by squealing brakes and an almost instantaneous inquiry in my language, "Taxi to the airport, sir?" A skinny and unkempt man peered at me eagerly over his worn blue SIMCA. I quickly recovered, accepted his offer, and we were off in a cloud of dust. Enroute I began to probe the mystery of my good fortune. I found that he was indeed a private licensed cabbie and that his monthly license fee was nearly enough to pay the salaries of those four card players. As we talked on I determined to ask his feelings about socialism. As my question registered, he looked directly at me in the rear view mirror and responded quietly, "How do you like socialism?" I had no trouble stating briefly my disapproval, and then he looked down and responded quietly. "We do not like it either. We would rather have our freedom."

A Vision and Hope for the Youth

by Ezra Taft Benson, Former Secretary of the Agriculture under Dwight D. Eisenhower, and former president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Speech to BYU Students

12 April 1977

My beloved brethren and sisters, humbly and gratefully I stand before you this morning and seek an interest in your faith and prayers that the message that I have may be accompanied by the Spirit. It is a wonderful sight that I view here this morning. It is good to be with you, my beloved young friends, distinguished members of the faculty, and special guests.

My wife and I have just returned from a glorious weekend at St. George, where I had the privilege of addressing three overflow audiences, two in the largest auditorium they have at Dixie College and made up largely of young people, and one on the fourth floor of the temple in a Solemn Assembly. We were honoring the centennial of the dedication of the St. George Temple, the first one to be erected in the western part of the country. We are still basking in the aftermath of another great general conference of the Church. Never in my memory have we had more explicit warnings from prophets of God; and nowhere in the world are there men better prepared or more obligated to issue such warnings.

The Celestial Kingdom

Today I want to discuss some principles and laws of the celestial kingdom, and some of the fallacies of their perverted counterfeits in the world. I share with you a vision of your eternal possibilities. The celestial kingdom, residence of God, our Eternal Father, is comprised of men and women who have complied with divine law and who were not deceived by the craftiness of men or the doctrines of devils. They are just men made perfect through the mediation and atonement of Jesus Christ (see D&C 76:69). They are obedient to celestial law; for, as the Lord has said, he who is not able to abide the law of a celestial kingdom cannot abide a celestial glory (D&C 88:22).

Celestial laws, embodied in certain ordinances belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ, are complied with by voluntary covenants. The laws are spiritual. Thus, our Father in Heaven has ordained certain holy sanctuaries, called temples, in which these laws may be fully explained, the laws include the law of obedience and sacrifice, the law of the gospel, the law of chastity, and the law of consecration.

I want to speak more particularly this morning about this one law--the law of consecration. It is that one's time, talents, strength, property, and money are given up to the Lord for the express purpose of building up the kingdom of God and establishing Zion on the earth. Or, as we read in Doctrine and Covenants 105:5, "Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom."

Much has been written about this law and its attempted implementations in the early history of the Church; and much deception has taken root, even among some of our members, because of misinformed opinion or misguided interpretations. Some view it as merely an economic alternative to capitalism or the free enterprise system, others as an outgrowth of early communal experiments in America. Such a view is not only shortsighted but tends to diminish in importance a binding requirement for entrance into the celestial kingdom. The law of consecration is a celestial law, not an economic experiment.

The vehicle for implementing the law of consecration is the united order. The basic principle underlying the united order is that everything we have belongs to the Lord; and, therefore, the Lord may call upon us for any and all of our property, because it belongs to him. The united order was entered by "a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken" (D&C 42:30), according to the scriptures. In other words, an individual conveys his titles to all his property to the Church through the bishop. The property becomes the property of the Church. You read about this in the forty-second section of the Doctrine and Covenants.

The bishop then deeds back to the consecrator by legal instrument the amount of personal property required by the individual for the support of himself and his family, as the Lord declares, "according to his circumstances and his wants and needs" (D&C 51:3). This becomes the private, personal property of the individual to develop as he sees fit. It is his stewardship. When an individual produces a profit or surplus more than is needful for the support of himself and his family, the surplus is then placed in the bishops storehouse to administer to the poor and the needy. Under the united order, idleness has no place, and greed, selfishness, and covetousness are condemned. The united order may therefore operate with only a righteous people.

It has been erroneously concluded by some that the united order is both communal and communistic in theory and practice because the revelations speak of equality. Equality under the united order is not economic and social leveling as advocated by some today. Equality, as described by the Lord, is "equal[ity] according to [a man's] family, according to his circumstances and his wants and needs" (D&C 51:3).

Is the united order a communal system? Emphatically not. It never has been and never will be. It is "intensely individualistic." Does the united order eliminate private ownership of property? No. "The fundamental principle of this system [is] the private ownership of property" (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, October 1942, p. 57).

Two separate groups of saints have fully implemented this divine law. The first was the united order under Enoch, wherein the Lord designated this people Zion, "because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them." We read of this in the seventh chapter, eighteenth verse, of Moses, in the Pearl of Great Price. A second instance was the Nephite civilization following the visit of the Savior to the Western Hemisphere after his resurrection. This is recorded in 4 Nephi, the third verse particularly. The failure of the early Saints in this dispensation to live according to the fulness of the law is explained by the Lord in revelations recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants, sections 101 and 105.

I repeat and emphasize that the law of consecration is a law for an inheritance in the celestial kingdom. God, the Eternal Father, his Son Jesus Christ, and all holy beings abide by this law. It is an eternal law. It is a revelation by God to his Church in this dispensation. Though not in full operation today, it will be mandatory for all Saints to live the law in its fulness to receive celestial inheritance. You young people today abide a portion of this higher law as you tithe, pay a generous fast offering, go on missions, and make other contributions of money, service, and time.

Satan's Counterfeit System

But whenever the God of heaven establishes by revelation his design, Satan always comes among men to pervert the doctrine, saying, "Believe it not." He often establishes a counterfeit system, designed to deceive the children of men. His aim, as it was before the foundation of this earth was laid, is to thwart the agency of man and to subjugate him. Throughout all ages of mankind, the adversary has used human agents and despotic governments to establish his purpose. Satan is determined to destroy all that is dear, all that will ennoble and exalt man to a celestial kingdom.

Isaiah foresaw the time when a marvelous work and a wonder would come forth among men (see Isaiah 29:14). Isaiah also predicted that there would be those that "seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark, and they [shall] say, Who seeth us?" (Isaiah 29:15). He saw the time when the work, man, shall say of him that made him, "He made me not," denying his creation (see Isaiah 29:16). It is well to ask what self-proclaimed atheists came on the human scene following the restoration of the gospel, who established secret works of darkness to overthrow nations by violent revolution and who blasphemously proclaimed the atheistic doctrine that God made us not. Yes, Satan works through human agents. We need only look to some of the ignoble figures in human history who were contemporary to the restoration of the gospel to discover fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. I refer to the infamous founders of communism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Today, if we are alert, we can see further fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecies.

Communism--a System Antithetical to the Gospel of Christ

Through the instigation of Marx and Engels, a most successful counterfeit to the united order was introduced into the world. The declaration of principles found in their Manifesto to the World advocated the overthrow of capitalism and free enterprise, the abolition of private property, the elimination of the family as a social unit, the abolition of all classes, the overthrow of all governments, and the establishment of communal ownership of property in a classless, stateless society. All this was to be accomplished by revolution.

On July 3, 1936, the First Presidency published this warning to Church members. I quote it in part; I hope you will get a copy of the full statement for your files. In part, the statement reads:

... Communism is not a political party, nor a political plan under the Constitution; it is a system of government that is the opposite of our Constitutional government. . . . 

Since Communism, established, would destroy our American Constitutional government, to support Communism is treasonable to our free institutions, and no patriotic American citizen may become either a Communist or supporter of Communism. 

To our Church members we say, Communism is not the United Order, and bears only the most superficial resemblance thereto. Communism is based upon intolerance and force, the United Order upon love and freedom of conscience and action. . . . 

Communists cannot establish the United Order, nor will Communism bring it about. . . . 

Communism being thus hostile to loyal American citizenship and incompatible with true Church membership, of necessity no loyal American citizen and no faithful Church member can be a Communist. 

We call upon all Church members completely to eschew [and shun] Communism. The safety of our divinely inspired Constitutional government and the welfare of our Church imperatively demand that Communism shall have no place in America.

Signed,

President Heber J. Grant

J. Reuben Clark, Jr.

David O. McKay

The First Presidency

You students have only to read some of the speeches and writings of the exiled Russian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to appreciate this farsighted warning of the First Presidency.

I have been on both sides of the Iron Curtain several times. I have talked to these godless leaders face to face. I say to you with all the sincerity of my soul that since 1933 this godless counterfeit to the gospel has made tremendous progress towards its objective of world domination, for over one-third of the human family are now under totalitarian subjugation.

Today we are in a battle for the bodies and souls of men. It is a battle between two opposite systems: freedom and slavery, Christ and anti-Christ. The struggle today is more momentous than a decade ago, yet today the conventional wisdom, so called, is that we have got to learn to live with communism, to give up our ideas about national sovereignty. You hear that repeated today. Tell that to the millions--yes, the scores of millions--who have met death or imprisonment under the tyranny of communism. Learn to live with communism? Such would be the death knell of freedom and all we hold dear.

The gospel of Jesus Christ can prosper only in an atmosphere of freedom. As members of his Church, we have a major responsibility to do all in our power to see that freedom is preserved and safeguarded. I pray that God will bless you to see communism for what it really is: the greatest system of human slavery that the world has ever known. May you not be deceived into believing that the communists have moderated their goal toward world domination. I say to you that so-called detente is a fraud. Time will prove it to be such.

There is no excuse for any BYU instructor to grant a forum to an avowed communist for the purpose of teaching communism on this campus. It may be done on other campuses in the United States, but it will not be done here.

Socialism--a Philosophy Incompatible with Man's Liberty

Another notable counterfeit system to the Lord's plan is collectivized socialism. Socialism derives its philosophy from the founders of communism, Marx and Engels. Communism in practice is socialism. Its purpose is world socialism, which the communists seek to achieve by revolution, and which the socialists seek to achieve by evolution. Both communism and socialism have the same effect upon the individual--a loss of personal liberty. As was said so well by President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., "The two are as two peas in a pod in their ultimate effect upon our liberties."

Why is socialism incompatible with man's liberty? Socialism cannot work except through an all-powerful state. The state has to be supreme in everything. When individuals begin to exert their God-given rights, the state has to suppress that freedom. So belief in God must be suppressed, and with that gone freedom of conscience and religion must also go. Those are the first of our liberties mentioned in the Bill of Rights.

There are some among us who would confuse the united order with socialism. That is a serious misunderstanding. It is significant to me that the Prophet Joseph Smith, after attending lectures on socialism in his day, made this official entry in the Church history: "I said I did not believe the doctrine" (Joseph Smith, History of the Church 6:33).

Socialism Disguised under Welfare State Measures

As citizens of this noble land, we have marched a long way down the soul-destroying road of socialism. If you question that statement, consider the recent testimonial from the Nobel prize-winning economist, Milton Friedman. He indicated that government spending in the United States at all levels amounts to over forty percent of today's total national income. If we continue to follow the trend in which we are heading today, two things will inevitably result: first, a loss of our personal freedom, and second, financial bankruptcy. This is the price we pay when we turn away from God and the principles which he has taught and turn to government to do everything for us. It is the formula by which nations become enslaved.

This nation was established by the God of heaven as a citadel of liberty. A constitution guaranteeing those liberties was designed under the superintending influence of heaven. I have recounted here before what took place in the St. George Temple when the Founding Fathers of this nation visited President Wilford Woodruff, who was then a member of the Twelve and not president of the Church. The republic which was established was the most nearly perfect system which could have been devised to lead men toward celestial principles. We may liken our system to the law of Moses which leads men to the higher law of Christ.

Today, two hundred years later, we must sadly observe that we have significantly departed from the principles established by the founders of our country. James Madison opposed the proposal to put Congress in the role of promoting the general welfare according to its whims in these words:

If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasure; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor. . . . Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for [and it was an issue then], it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America. [quoted in Donald L. Newquist, Prophets, Principles, and National Survival, p. 342]

That statement, given as a warning, has proved prophetic. Today Congress is doing what Madison warned about. Many are now advocating that which has become a general practice since the early 1930s: a redistribution of wealth through the federal tax system. That, by definition, is socialism!

Americans have always been committed to taking care of the poor, aged, and unemployed. We have done this on the basis of Judaic-Christian beliefs and humanitarian principles. It has been fundamental to our way of life that charity must be voluntary if it is to be charity. Compulsory benevolence is not charity. Today's socialists--who call themselves egalitarians--are using the federal government to redistribute wealth in our society, not as a matter of voluntary charity, but as a so-called matter of right. One HEW official said recently, "In this country, welfare is no longer charity, it is a right. More and more Americans feel that their government owes them something" (U.S. News and World Report, April 21, 1975, p. 49). President Grover Cleveland said--and we believe as a people--that though the people support the government the government should not support the people.

The chief weapon used by the federal government to achieve this "equality" is the system of transfer payments. This means that the federal governments collects from one income group and transfer payments to another by the tax system. These payments are made in the form of social security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid, and food stamps, to name a few. Today the cost of such programs has been going in the hole at the rate of 12 billion dollars a year; and, with increased benefits and greater numbers of recipients, even though the tax base has been increased we will have larger deficits in the future.

Today the party now in power is advocating and has support, apparently in both major parties, for a comprehensive national health insurance program--a euphemism for socialized medicine. Our major danger is that we are currently (and have been for forty years) transferring responsibility from the individual, local, and state governments to the federal government--precisely the same course that led to the economic collapse in Great Britain and New York City. We cannot long pursue the present trend without its bringing us to national insolvency.

Edmund Burke, the great British political philosopher, warned of the threat of economic equality. He said,

A perfect equality will indeed be produced--that is to say, equal wretchedness, equal beggary, and on the part of the petitioners, a woeful, helpless, and desperate disappointment. Such is the event of all compulsory equalizations. They pull down what is above; they never raise what is below; and they depress high and low together beneath the level of what was originally the lowest.

Are we part of the problem or part of the solution?

Recently a letter came to my office, accompanied by an article from your Daily Universe, on the matter of BYU students taking food stamps. The query of the letter was: "What is the attitude of the Church on taking food stamps?" The Church's view on this is well known. We stand for independence, thrift, and abolition of the dole. This was emphasized in the Saturday morning welfare meeting of general conference. "The aim of the Church is to help the people to help themselves. Work is to be re-enthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership" (Heber J. Grant, Conference Report, October 1936, p. 3).

When you accept food stamps, you accept an unearned handout that other working people are paying for. You do not earn food stamps or welfare payments. Every individual who accepts an unearned government gratuity is just as morally culpable as the individual who takes a handout from taxpayers' money to pay his heat, electricity, or rent. There is no difference in principle between them. You did not come to this University to become a welfare recipient. You came here to be a light to the world, a light to society--to save society and to help to save this nation, the Lord's base of operations in these latter days, to ameliorate man's social conditions. You are not here to be a parasite or freeloader. The price you pay for "something for nothing" may be more than you can afford. Do not rationalize your acceptance of government gratuities by saying, "I am a contributing taxpayer too." By doing this you contribute to the problem which is leading this nation to financial insolvency.

Society may rationalize immorality, but God cannot condone it. Society sponsors Sabbathbreaking, but the Church counsels otherwise. Society profanes the name of Deity, but Latter-day Saints cannot countenance it. Because society condones a dole, which demoralizes man and weakens his God-given initiative and character, can we?

I know what it is, as many of your faculty members do, to work my way through school, taking classes only during winter quarters. If you don't have the finances to complete your education, drop out a semester and go to work and save. You'll be a better man or woman for so doing. You will have preserved your self-respect and initiative. Wisdom comes with experience and struggle, not just with going through a university matriculation. I hope you will not be deceived by current philosophies which will rob you of your godly dignity, self-respect, and initiative, those attributes that make a celestial inheritance possible. It is in that interest, and that only, that I have spoken so plainly to you.

My Hope for You, the Youth of Zion

In opening my remarks to you, beloved youth of the Church, I attempted to share with you a vision of your eternal possibilities. In closing my remarks, I share with you my hope for you:

I hope that you learn through your struggles the joy of achievement.

I hope that you recognize in the gospel of Jesus Christ a solution to our problems, temporal and spiritual.

I hope that you marry well, live together in love, rear a family in righteousness, and have joy and rejoicing in your posterity.

I hope that you follow the example and counsel of him whom the Lord has appointed as prophet, seer, and revelator.

I hope that you learn the joy of work, the ability to postpone wants, and the economic independence not to be a slave to any man.

I hope that you keep yourselves clean morally and spiritually, that your confidence will wax strong in the presence of God, as the scriptures say, and the Holy Ghost will be your constant companion (see D&C 121:45–46).

I hope that you will be united in philosophy, purpose, and action to the laws of the celestial kingdom.

I pray God's choicest blessings on you, my beloved brethren and sisters. May I say to you that there isn't anything in this world that's right that the leadership of this Church wouldn't do for the youth of the Church; and so I hope and pray that you realize the hope of those who love you and serve you and the possibilities of your potential as sons and daughters of God. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

It's a New Day for #SQ01GOP

by Candace E. Salima | 24 March 2016

It's a new day for our precinct. We are going to be active and engaged. I will be meeting with our delegates in the next few days to prep them for their roles as delegates and as your representatives.

We will talk about their responsibilities and duties as your delegates and prep them for convention.

I wish to thank each of you, all 71 of you, who voted for me to be your precinct chair. I will carry out my duties faithfully. First and foremost, I promise not to leave the Republican Party. The Utah County Republican Platform is something I wholeheartedly agree with and endorse.

For our next caucus I promise these things:

• We will have three check-in tables on the night of the caucus,
• We will be set up at 6:00 p.m. so that everyone can be checked in and seated by 7:00 p.m.
• I will bring my own sound system so everyone can hear
• We will have counters/watchers pre-selected and there on time
• The caucus will be organized
• We will have more than enough ballots for each race

On the side, you'll see our founding documents, the GOP County Party Platform, the GOP State Party Platform and the national GOP Platform.

If anyone is willing to help walk the precinct, we can divide the precinct into a two block radius. You will be responsible for helping GOP voters to register to vote as well as accept any donations which will then be promptly handed over to our treasurer, Emily Murphy. Those monies will then be turned into the County Party.

Again, it is a new day for our little precinct. I am trying to get Senator Mike Lee, Congresswoman Mia Love and Jonathan Johnson down here again. Getting Gary Herbert here will be next to an impossibility as he won't attend debates or townhalls.

Let's put Santaquin on the map for the statesmen and politicians in our state.