L. Tom Perry Takes Dead Aim at the Left in Conference

[_Droopy]

They were for polygamy.

No problem. So am I if it is authorized by the Lord and controlled by legitimate priesthood authority.

They were ambivalent about slavery

So is the New Testament.

They were sympathetic to the Third Reich.

Bald lie, which I and others buried a number of years ago at the FAIR board (well, Barf is a lawyer, after all, and we don't hold them to the same standards required of intellectually and morally normal adults (and it would probably be futile to do so).

They were opposed to the civil rights movement.

No, the Church wasn't. There was a variety of opinion amongst the Brethren of the time, and no official doctrine on the movement. Smear on, Barf J., its all you have, I know.

What are you going to do when the Supreme Court recognizes same-sex marriage and the Church is yet again dragged kicking and screaming into normal society?

By the time that happens, society will no longer be normal, and the Church will not be dragged anywhere. The Supreme Court recognizing homosexual marriage means utterly nothing, as far as the Church is concerned. We will still teach that it is sin, that it is a gross transgression of God's most sacred commandments and leads to eternal separation from God (as with all forms of sexual immorality), and conduct ourselves accordingly.

And in any case, as with abortion, the Supreme Court, not being an accountable legislative body, has no business sticking its nose into this issue at all. This is yet another 10th Amendment issue to be worked out at the state level by the people through deliberative democratic processes among accountable legislatures.

Frightening, isn't it?

[_son of Ishmael]

By the time that happens, society will no longer be normal, and the Church will not be dragged anywhere. The Supreme Court recognizing homosexual marriage means utterly nothing, as far as the Church is concerned. We will still teach that it is sin, that it is a gross transgression of God's most sacred commandments and leads to eternal separation from God (as with all forms of sexual immorality), and conduct ourselves accordingly.

While I don't claim to be a prophet, I predict that within 30 years the church will receive a "revelation" that basically reverses its position on homosexuality.

[_Droopy]

From the article: “…As a matter of fact, a number of interesting parallels can be seen between the church and some of the ideas and policies of the National Socialists…”

You would have thought that the Lord would have taken time out from his busy schedule to tell the church leadership to stay away from making any sort of favorable comparisions between the church and the FREAKING NAZIS...

I'm sure you'll be pleased to discover that, in 1933, and for some years after that, virtually the entire progressive Left of the era thought that Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists as with Mussolini and Stalin, were each in their own unique way, (as part of a larger family of collectivist, statist ideologies, each with its own particular emphasis and features), the wave of the future. A substantial number, if not majority, of American and British leftists then, including many of its leading intellectuals, were ga ga over eugenics, as well as over utopian collectivism.

There was little understanding among the leaders of the Church, let alone most Americans, journalists, or academics of what the Nazis actually represented and what their ultimate aims and goals were. That only came much later, and with much greater information and hindsight, things became much clearer (except to the Left, which were first against Hitler before the Molotov-Ribbontrope Pact, then for him during it, and then against him again after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, and the Nazis suddenly became "fascists" and the Marxian socialists became the enemies of another system bearing substantial resemblance to its own).

Barf J, given his character and psychology, as manifested here over the years, would very probably, had he lived in the Old South, owned slaves and treated them like animals. I have little doubt on that score. Barf's phony moralistic posturing in his judgement of past ages, eras, and cultural milieus according to present standards here exists only because his obsessive crusade against all things Mormon render him as intellectually reckless as he is morally obtuse.

[Guest]

There was little understanding among the leaders of the Church, let alone most Americans, journalists, or academics of what the Nazis actually represented and what their ultimate aims and goals were....

I agree. So why didn't God straighten out his prophet? You know do some of that revelation thing.

[Guest]

They were for polygamy.

No problem. So am I if it is authorized by the Lord and controlled by legitimate priesthood authority.

So long as an act of Congress doesn't say "not in our country," right?

They were ambivalent about slavery

So is the New Testament.

Tu quoque with the Bible! I love it!

They were sympathetic to the Third Reich.

Bald lie, which I and others buried a number of years ago at the FAIR board (well, Barf is a lawyer, after all, and we don't hold them to the same standards required of intellectually and morally normal adults (and it would probably be futile to do so).

I'm sorry, Brother Blood, but as already shown in this thread, it is an irrefutable fact that the Church officially sympathized with the Nazis. That, by the way, is why the LDS Church was one of only three---count them, three---organized religions that was allowed to continue throughout Nazi Germany.

They were opposed to the civil rights movement.

No, the Church wasn't. There was a variety of opinion amongst the Brethren of the time, and no official doctrine on the movement. Smear on, Barf J., its all you have, I know.

The following organizations had one of its leaders state in its worldwide meeting for its members that the civil rights movement was a communist plot:

(a) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(b) Not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

What are you going to do when the Supreme Court recognizes same-sex marriage and the Church is yet again dragged kicking and screaming into normal society?

By the time that happens, society will no longer be normal, and the Church will not be dragged anywhere. The Supreme Court recognizing homosexual marriage means utterly nothing, as far as the Church is concerned. We will still teach that it is sin, that it is a gross transgression of God's most sacred commandments and leads to eternal separation from God (as with all forms of sexual immorality), and conduct ourselves accordingly.

Just like the Church stood firmly against Babylon when the Supreme Court held there is no First Amendment right to practice polygamy, eh, Brother Blood?

And in any case, as with abortion, the Supreme Court, not being an accountable legislative body, has no business sticking its nose into this issue at all.

I, too, have often mused that Article III of the Constitution is unconstitutional.

This is yet another 10th Amendment issue to be worked out at the state level by the people through deliberative democratic processes among accountable legislatures.

Frightening, isn't it?

Yes, Mormons have certainly restrained themselves from going to court to insist that the Constitution protects their right to marry on their own terms, haven't they? http://www.oyez.org/cases/1851-1900/1878/1878_0

Funny thing about the 10th Amendment, though. The 14th Amendment was ratified after it, and it is through the 14th Amendment that the Bill of Rights applies to the states. That's why, for example, South Carolina can't pass a statute that says it's illegal for Mormons to marry each other.

But supposed the sovereign state of South Carolina did pass such a statute. I'm sure you would agree that Mormons should not go to court to have the law declared unconstitutional under the 1st and 14th Amendments. Rather, Mormons in South Carolina should just let the democratic process within their state deny them the right to marry.

You know, Brother Blood, a few years ago there was a case decided by the Supreme Court called Boy Scouts of America v. Dale. In that case, the people of the sovereign state of New Jersey had used the democratic process to pass a law saying homosexuals could not be denied access to places of public accommodation. Exercising its prerogative under the 10th Amendment and basic principles of federalism (a term that is found nowhere in the text of the Constitution), the New Jersey Supreme Court determined that the Boy Scouts were violating state law by denying a homosexual the right to be a scoutmaster.

And then you know what happened? Some unelected, unaccountable tyrants in black robes on the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision, and said that under the 1st Amendment right of association (a right that doesn't exist in the text of the Constitution), the Boy Scouts had the right to restrict who its leaders are, despite state law that should have been sovereign under the 10th Amendment.

I am pleased to see you make the case for why Dale was wrongly decided, and the State of New Jersey should have been able to force the BSA to let homosexuals lead its troops.

[_Darth J]

You would have thought that the Lord would have taken time out from his busy schedule to tell the church leadership to stay away from making any sort of favorable comparisions between the church and the FREAKING NAZIS...

I'm sure you'll be pleased to discover that, in 1933, and for some years after that, virtually the entire progressive Left of the era thought that Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists as with Mussolini and Stalin, were each in their own unique way, (as part of a larger family of collectivist, statist ideologies, each with its own particular emphasis and features), the wave of the future. A substantial number, if not majority, of American and British leftists then, including many of its leading intellectuals, were ga ga over eugenics, as well as over utopian collectivism.

Thank you for conceding the simpatico between the Church and the progressive left of the era.

There was little understanding among the leaders of the Church, let alone most Americans, journalists, or academics of what the Nazis actually represented and what their ultimate aims and goals were. That only came much later, and with much greater information and hindsight, things became much clearer (except to the Left, which were first against Hitler before the Molotov-Ribbontrope Pact, then for him during it, and then against him again after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, and the Nazis suddenly became "fascists" and the Marxian socialists became the enemies of another system bearing substantial resemblance to its own).

See also: Gift of discernment

By the way, how many young men in the German resistance did the Roman Catholic Church excommunicate for spreading anti-Nazi propaganda? Not as many as the LDS Church, I bet!

Barf J, given his character and psychology, as manifested here over the years, would very probably, had he lived in the Old South, owned slaves and treated them like animals. I have little doubt on that score.

You think I would have been a good Mormon in the Old South? That's sweet of you to say, Brother Blood!

Barf's phony moralistic posturing in his judgement of past ages, eras, and cultural milieus according to present standards here exists only because his obsessive crusade against all things Mormon render him as intellectually reckless as he is morally obtuse.

Oh, so the restored gospel does not present eternal, unchanging truths that we can use to understand the human condition? I see.

Incidentally, Brother Blood, you can go back to calling me Johnnie Cochran. Unlike you, I do not find it insulting to be compared to a black man.

[_Droopy]

They don't need to, for the faithful Saints. They know precisely what he's talking about. No sophistry needed or desired, thank you.

So here is the problem I have with this. The leaders don't need to be specific. They can be intentionally vague thus they offend nobody out right. There is the position, that they Church is politically neutral and does not pick parties or recommend candidates. So now we have some, like you and like BC, that say the faithful understand and since we, meaning you and BC, are faithful, we know they mean conservative politics and leftists are simply evil scum.

Who said anything about parties, candidates, or even conservative politics? The extreme self-consciousness of people in the Church on the Left who struggle for some convergence between their politics and gospel doctrine is the best evidence available for the inherent futility of the attempt, and the, well, fundamental comfort of LDS with a large number of generally conservative positions, is clear evidence that this is, generally speaking, the best "fit," as to overall principles, ideas, concepts, sensibilities, and values, to church teachings.

The terms "entitlement" and "debt" are crystal clear references, yes, to longstanding, historical beliefs within the Left regarding human society, political policy, and the meaning of economics within the human condition. The "entitlement mentality" is also, indeed, a fundamental effect of the welfare state as the Left has structured and managed it during the 20th century. The gospel is in irreconcilable conflict with these principles, it is also true.

As with all things in the Church, we are free to accept, or free to rebel, against the counsel and teaching of the Lord's servants, the prophets.

Your conclusions about the vague comments L Tom Perry makes...

Retreat from the audacious realm of fantasy you have concocted for yourself here and think clearly for a moment: there is nothing whatsoever "vague" about the use of these terms taking into account the doctrines and teachings of the Church as a whole, or relative to what has been said before, over generations, upon the very same subject and in an even more open and uncompromising manner. Commenting upon the Church welfare system and comparison/contrast of it with the then in vogue New Deal system, Heber J. Grant said:

Our primary purpose was to set up, in so far as it might be possible, a system under which the curse of idleness would be done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift and self respect be once more established amongst our people. 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.

That's the kind of problem still faced by members trying to find common ground between the gospel and the Left today. Babylon and Zion are in irreconcilable conflict. Light and darkness always are (and must be).

are the correct ones because you are more special, more righteous, etc.

Get off your holy high white horse and take a breather, Jason.

Is that really what you get out the the gospel of Jesus Christ? See this is what religions does when someone really thinks they have the perfect truth and all others are in error. It can be very dangerous.

So the Church is not true, then? Well, I kind of knew you felt that way, but thanks for making it explicit. That's OK, of course, if that's really the path you have chosen, but its the whole NOM project of fomenting and sheparding a convergence between Zion and the Great and Spacious Building that I have a real problem with.

[Guest]

And thus we see the problem. Droopy thinks he is more faithful, more righteous, one of the virgins whose lamp is full,

CFR

so he knows what Elder Perry meant...

I know what Elder Perry meant because I have a deep and substantive knowledge of the gospel, forged from nearly 40 years of study and reflection, and because I have normal reading comprehension, the ability to think logically, a strong belief that words mean things, and a desire to know the truth, and then live, to the best of my ability, that which I know.

You see, Jason, as a conservative, I don't have to play head games with myself to make the gospel fit my political, social, and philosophical views. And, as the gospel, not any other system of belief or body of ideas, is the fundamental frame of reference for all my other philosophical positions, theories, and speculations, my conservative beliefs (or those on any other subject) must be consistent and harmonious with Church teachings, or they get modified or dumped.

That is not what I've ever seen happen when a leftist mentality infects LDS in the Church or follows them into the waters of baptism. When one is on the Left, it is then always the Church that must converge and absorb "progressive" beliefs, not progressive beliefs that must withstand scrutiny under the microscope of gospel teaching.

I have never yet seen an exception.

[_Droopy]

As I have noted in the past, my current SP, and prior SP, who was recently releases as an area 70, would disagree with you.

And I would disagree with them.

Both are democrats though they are more center left than way left. Both professionally are very bright attorneys. Both are I am sure at least as well read as are you, perhaps more so.

Yeah, Jason...I'm quite sure. I mean, they must be, right?

Both have a deep understanding of LDS Church doctrine and scripture as well as its history and both are committed Latter-day Saints.

So you say. Fine. And I say that I do as well.

They would find your positon repugnant I have no doubt.

Name one, just one Jason, and no need for anything exotic, but just one classically leftist position - on anything, anything at all - that could reasonably be harmonized with gospel principles and teachings.

Note: I don't mean an attitude or feeling, such as "I'm for world peace." or "We have an obligation to care for the poor." Most everyone accepts these kinds of vague, general attitudes about very broad classes of ideals.

I mean a concrete philosophical assumption, proposition, policy, or belief about the human condition itself, in any area. State it, and then show its plausible convergence with the Church.

[_Darth J]

You see, Jason, as a conservative, I don't have to play head games with myself to make the gospel fit my political, social, and philosophical views. And, as the gospel, not any other system of belief or body of ideas, is the fundamental frame of reference for all my other philosophical positions, theories, and speculations, my conservative beliefs (or those on any other subject) must be consistent and harmonious with Church teachings, or they get modified or dumped.

"Your faith in the White is weak and soft. Your talk of love is presumption. Only when you speak of the bottle are you informed."

--'Salem's Lot, Stephen King