Topic: Freedom, Loss of, Matches 54 quotes.

In September, 1923, eighteen years ago, at a religious service in this Tabernacle, I mentioned certain trends I then saw. They were: a spirit of revolution that threatened the very foundations of government everywhere, indeed the destruction of the existing bodies politic of the world; the unrestricted immigration of aliens who were foreign and in tradition hostile to our systems of government; the enhancement of the power of the Federal Executive; the breaking down of the mutual independence of the three branches of government,—executive, judicial, and legislative; the disappearance of local self government and the assumption of control by the Federal Government of the very details of our lives; the curtailment of our constitutional guarantees under the Bill of Rights; the building of class in our nation and of class conflict and hatred; the spread of Bolshevism, we call it Communism now, working for the overthrow of our government, the doing away with religion, even the overturning of our family relationshps.

During the eighteen years passed since then, I have on all opportunities repeated these observations.

I will leave you to make up your own minds how far these trends have become realities.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1941

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Government, Loss of Freedom

No Man Sees End

No thinking person doubts that our people, our nation, and the world are now passing through one of the great crises of the world’s history. We are in the midst of a world-wide revolution, which is wholly alien to our free institutions and is foreign in birth, concept, and directing head. No man, of his own power, sees the end. But the end the revolutionists seek is fairly clear; it is the overturning of the whole existing order, political, financial, economic, social, religious, the complete destruction of our Constitution and the government established under it, and then the setting up of some sort of despotism that shall destroy, in all these fields, the free agency which the Lord gave to man. The revolutionists plan that this is to be largely done during the war, under the plea of war necessity; it is to be continued after the war under the excuse—if we are not then too cowed to require an excuse—that this new political order is necessary that we may rehabilitate the world. They count that then, after a little time, the revolution will be secure. There seems no doubt that this is their conscious, deliberate, planned end. We have gone a long way already down this road.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1941

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Government, Downfall

We have used our freedom to renounce all discipline, and in the marvelous achievements of this industrial and scientific age we have grown arrogant and have discarded our ancient faith. The iconoclasts have been at work. Those egotists who cannot rest happy so long as an unsullied name, eclipsing their own, is allowed to stand untarnished, have been busy with their smear pots. They are called by the very ugly but very appropriate name de-bunkers. Nothing so much needs de-bunking as they themselves. Because they cannot dissect God and examine His parts they have denied that He is; they have scoffed at the divinity of Jesus and because His benignity and purity and unselfishness and all-embracing compassion so far transcend their cynical powers of comprehension, they have characterized Him a pretender and notoriety-seeking rabble rouser. The Ten Commandments are ridiculed as a defenseless and untrue imposition upon a primitive, uncultured and migrant people. Washington and Lincoln and the other great characters of history they have with profane hands dragged down from their high pedestals and have dissected bit by bit, searched out and with malicious glee thrown upon the screen the distorted and magnified image of their every foible and blemish. The founders of our government, the framers of our Constitution are converted into self-seeking aristocrats bent only on preserving their advantages of station, while that great instrument itself is made the embodiment of palpably absurd and now outmoded eighteenth century philosophy. They are determined that nothing shall remain sacred or be revered. They have succeeded only too well. To maintain itself strong in the present a people must be sustained by the consciousness of a noble past and the hope of a glorious future. Too much of the nobility of the past and the hope for the future has gone into eclipse.

Source: Elder Albert E. Bowen
General Conference, October 1940

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

All Latter-day Saints and all thoughtful Americans feel that our last defense as a great democracy is righteous behavior, that the peace and perpetuity of this government depend upon the lives of its citizens, and no other people have a cleaner and deeper appreciation of the privileges and blessings of the great government that shelters us than have we.

Source: Elder Bryant S. Hinckley
General Conference, October 1939

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Morality; Peace

Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government.

Source: Henry Kissinger
speaking at Evian, France, May 21, 1992
Bilderburgers meeting. Unbeknownst to Kissinger, his speech was taped by a Swiss delegate to the meeting.

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

The facts are, it is said, unemployment in this country was never so great, amiable relations between capital and labor were never so poor, taxes were never so high, amounts paid for relief under one title or another were never so vast, the debts of the government never so enormous, struggles for place and power never so fierce, in short, the future outlook for a united, prosperous and happy country, governed along the lines indicated by our Constitution, was never so dark.

But at best the situation is extremely complex. Certainly authors of panaceas that assume the situation is readily solvable must be classed as amiable cranks. But as I see it, in all the confusion, in all the struggles there stand out certain things when stripped of all their subterfuges and camouflages as clearly as a noon-day sun. What are they? My answer is greed and selfishness. Yes, I know there will be many, denials of this harsh conclusion. But I believe the conclusion is correct just the same.

Source: Elder Joseph F. Merrill
General Conference, October 1939

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

[I]t is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Source: Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering

Topics: Freedom, Loss of

Overseas it is the struggles of nations that fix our attention. In our own fair land we are disturbed by myriads of strikes and lockouts, industrial disputes, struggles of class against class, groups against groups, parties against parties, etc., in great number. In all of these cases clever propaganda, accompanied by some type of force, are the weapons of the struggles.

To see all of these things makes us fear and tremble for the morrow, for it is evident that a mighty revolution is in progress the end of which will be a profoundly different America from the historic country we received from the founders of the Republic. In those days the patriots fought against taxation without representation, the fight being the spark that set the revolution aflame. Today we fight for representation without taxation. We struggle for all the advantages of a benevolent government, set up by ourselves, made rich by the strong arm of the law seizing whatever it can from him who has.

We fight against being taxed, but demand more and more of the benefits that taxes provide. Is this not a struggle to get something for nothing, at least to get more and more for less and less?

We listen to smooth-tongued demagogues, accept as truth their wild vagaries and enthusiastically follow their cunning and selfish leadership. Why? Is it not in the hope of getting for ourselves more and more for less and less? We become adherents of various groups, pay membership dues, sometimes participate in disturbances, and engage in various other kinds of activities. Why? Is it not in the hope of getting more and more for less and less?

In all of these things do we stop to ask ourselves if our conduct squares with the thirteenth article of our faith? We profess to hate communism and fascism and stoutly deny that we would give the slightest support to either of these isms. Do we ever stop to think that in many respects these isms have much in common and that many of the things we do are heartily supported by communists who see in them an application of communistic principles? We are willing to overthrow some of our established methods and institutions, apparently without realizing that in so doing we take step after step that brings us nearer and nearer to communistic objectives.

Source: Elder Joseph F. Merrill
General Conference, October 1938

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Government, Loss of Freedom

World War Brought Hope

Twenty-one years ago our fathers, brothers and sons were enlisting in the great struggle of the World War; they were responding to the appeal that we were going to make the world safe for democracy, and we were led to hope and believe that it was the last great war, and the war to end war.

When the war was over we saw nation after nation abandon their monarchial forms of government and become republics, patterned after this nation, and our hearts were full of joy at the prospect that at last democracy and peace were going to reign.

Quick Return To Worse Conditions

Since then we have been greatly disturbed to see nation after nation abandon its democracy and go back to a condition some of us think worse than the condition under the czars, the kaisers, and the rulers, into a dictatorship. Today we witness the nations of the earth spending more money than in any other time in their history in building equipment upon the sea and the land for future wars. It is a sad picture, and yet I suppose that our wish was father to our thought, and we had hoped to see the end of the struggle and strife in this world.

Source: Elder Melvin J. Ballard
General Conference, October 1938

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; War

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