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Law
& Government
We
are dedicated to the examination of government
its
purpose and value in the New Age.
Several decades ago a
motion picture, The Servant, was made . In this
allegorical film, a servant does everything for his master,
fulfilling every need, even before he is asked. By
doing everything, the servant is making his master dependent
upon him. By the time the film has concluded, the master is
working for the servant.
As Jesus said, "Whoever
wants to be great, must first be your servant, and whoever
wants to be chiefest among you, must first be the servant of
all - Mark 10:43-44
Democratic and
republican forms of government
are the finest forms humanity has ever developed, but they are
far from perfect. It seems to be the case, that as governments
set out to ‘serve" the people, they end up taking away
the rights of the people in order to "serve" them
effectively.
For instance, a
government
agency, set up to make sure that various industries deal
fairly with the public, ends up protecting a monopoly that
excludes all competition.
How can there be
freedom of conscience if there is no freedom of action?
How can there be spiritual growth and evolution if our laws do
not permit variety and conflict?
There is a phrase in
Genesis - "Now there arose up a new ruler over Egypt who
knew not Joseph." This refers to the story of
Joseph rising to power in Egypt and gaining all kinds of
rights and privileges for the children of Israel. But
after he died, a new government
came along that no longer recognized these rights and soon the
children of Israel were turned into slaves.
How long can you
trust a government
that permits you to live your life the way you choose but
denies that same right to another?
During the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, individuals arose who
were known as freethinkers. They arrived at conclusions,
particularly in questions of religion and politics, by
employing the rules of reason while rejecting supernatural
authority or tradition. The freethinkers believed that
independence of thought from such authority leads all men to
essentially identical conclusions concerning morality and
religion.. The movement took different forms in different
countries. In England it was intimately connected with
deism but did not break completely with traditional
Christianity It took a more radical form in France
where Voltaire renounced all connection with Christianity, and
the Encyclopediist broke with religion altogether Freethinking
also influenced the philosophies of the Freemasons.
The freethinkers
believed tha God spoke to the heart of each individual,
therefore each individual was capable of governing himself.
It was this reasoning that led to the American colonists’
rebellion against King George III. The thoughts of the
freethinkers are reflected in the Constitution, particularly
the separation of church and state and the placing of limits
on the government.
The Constitution of
the United States of America is the document upon which the
United States government
was founded in 1789. It is as divinely inspired as the New
Testament. Like the teachings of Lao Tsu, the
Constitution sets forth the principles of correct government.
When a corporation is
founded, it must file its articles of incorporation - legal
document that sets forth the purposes and the aims of the
corporation. This document tells exactly what the
corporation is and exactly what it is empowered to do.
A corporation is forbidden to go beyond the limits set forth
in its articles of incorporation.
So it is with the U.
S. Constitution. It is the articles of incorporation of
this nation, setting forth the limits of the powers of the U.
S. government.
The Constitution says what the federal government
may and may not do. Any transgression by the government
beyond the limits set forth in the Constitution is an illegal
act of the gravest sort.
Nevertheless, the U.
S. government
has been operating illegally for the better part of a century.
It has been extorting money from the people to use for illegal
purposes. Article :l, Section 8 of the Constitution
enumerates the areas in which government
may legislate. With the exception of a few additional
powers which have been added through the amendment process, government
may do no more. It is a short list and everything that
the federal government
does that is not on that list - is illegal
A clear example is
the National Endowment for the Arts. This organization
is unconstitutional because Congress has no authority to
subsidize the arts, any more than it has the power to censor
the arts.
Advocates will argue
that as-yet unknown artists - potential Shakespeares and
Renoirs - must be promoted to ensure that the nation has a
viable cultural/artistic base. The government
-according to the Constitution - is not a charitable trust,
but is a powerful coercive monopoly, which has the power to
extract money from the people. The question
should not be "Do the arts deserve public support?",
but, in a free nation, should the federal government
force individuals to pay to support the arts? The
Constitution was written with the premise that there are very
few things important enough that citizens should be forced to
pay for them.
Some of the
unconstitutional powers that the federal government
has seized for itself are: The Department of Agriculture,
Department of Education, Revenue Sharing, and the CIA.
In addition to these well-known agencies, there are thousands
of other minor federal bureaus squandering our money for
various purposes - all of them contrary to the intent and the
wording of the Constitution.
It is these hundreds
of government
agencies illegally spending our money that is driving the U.S.
government
into bankruptcy. In addition to taking our money away from us,
every time Congress passes a law that exceeds its lawful
powers, we as citizens are deprived of our lawful, even,
divine rights.
We have learned
by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of
almost all men as soon as they get a little authority, as they
suppose, they then immediately begin to exercise unrighteous
dominion.- Doctrine & Covenants 121:39
In the early part of
the 19th century the Mormons recorded the scripture
above. Its philosophy reflected the wisdom of the
greater part of the U.S. At that time it was well known
that the purpose of the Constitution was to limit and control
the actions of the U.S. government
though it appears that this principle is no longer taught in
public schools
In George Orwell’s
novel Animal Farm the animals free themselves from the evil
control of the farmer. They set forth one basic law "All
animals are equal", and work together and share
responsibility for the farm. Soon, however, the pigs
begin to take control -claiming they are doing it for the good
of everyone. Eventually, the pigs introduce a new law which
says "Some animals are more equal than others."
Then they began ruling the other animals in a manner worse
than the farmer ever had.
The pigs - in
Orwell’s fantasy - represent the government.
In the U.S. and other nations people have established
governments to serve them, to promote order and harmony.
No matter how wise and humane a government
may be at its inception, as the scripture says; it is inclined
to begin to exercise unrighteous control over its citizenry.
One of the climaxing
violations of trust, is when the government
says that agents of the government
are permitted to do things that are denied to the cifizenry.
"Some animals are more equal than others".
Examples of such behavior in this country are: the bearing of
certain automatic weapons, the labeling of documents secret so
that citizens cannot read them, the purchase and sale of
illegal drugs, the use of wiretaps and other spy devices, etc.
All men are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed, says the Declaration of Independence, the
document upon which the Constitution is based.
In other words, all.
the powers the government
has, they. have gotten from the people. And, of course,
the people can only give to the government
powers that they, the people, already possess. No government
can lawfully or morally claim any powers not possessed by the
people. Just as a broken lock is a sign that a home has
been burgled, so the use of secrecy is a sign that the government
his become criminal and is acting in violation of the
Constitution.
200 years ago the
people of this land overthrew a lawful government
that they felt no longer operated in the interests of the
people. To make it unneccesary for this to happen again
the Constitution instituted a system in which every four years
or so, the people could overthrow the government
and institute a new one - through the process of election.
But evil powers have corrupted this elective process, altering
it from the effective system of change as established in the
Constitution to a farcial process by which established powers
maintain themselves at the expense of the people.
It is
not too late. We, the people of the United States can still
regain our rightful powers. We must first face and overcome
the greatest enemy the people of the this nation have ever
confronted -the lawful government
of this land, which no longer operates in the interest of the
people of the United States.
We
can keep changing our ofice-holders and hope for the best, or
we can change the system and guarantee it.
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