LDS Conservatives Are Idolatrous?

[_Droopy]

The extent of James Faust's apostasy?

I would, in his and other cases, put his support of the Democratic party down as wrongheadedness, not apostasy.

In other cases, in which it was not party affiliation, but political philosophy/ideology that was in question, it would be another matter.

I would simply refer you back to question 7 of the TR interview.

I know. I'd just, on a case by case basis, and especially were it a GA, consider such affiliation more non-ideological in nature and perhaps more psychological or simply historic (past ideals) until shown otherwise with unambiguous clarity.

[_Droopy]

But it is true, there are a significant number of BYU professors who lean strongly to the LEFT, and they make no secret about this. How is it then that they remain employed by the Church as educators?

But they are not "Church leaders," and their opinions mean utterly nothing with respect to the settled doctrines of the Church that impinge upon our salvation and exaltation.

[_bcspace]

I know. I'd just, on a case by case basis, and especially were it a GA, consider such affiliation more non-ideological in nature and perhaps more psychological or simply historic (past ideals) until shown otherwise with unambiguous clarity.

This is where Romans 1:32 comes in. One might not be directly involved in wickedness, but one might uphold it from a distance.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

[_bcspace]

Ah! 1917.

[_Droopy]

You obviously have never been to Bolivia. There are four institutions of control in Bolivia:

No, I haven't. I do, however know who Trotsky was, what he believed, and what those beliefs must create when actually applied in order for the aims and goals of those beliefs to be achieved. The destruction of free agency is not, however, an effect of socialist theory, but a central theoretical point.

The government, which is basically an oligarchy run by a small number of elite families (though this isn't quite so much the case with Evo's government).

The governments of virtually all fully socialized societies of which we have knowledge are oligarchies (nomenklaturas) run by a small ruling elite, in these cases (such as the old Soviet Union or Cuba, not families, but, quite literally, a political mafia).

Bolivia is nominally capitalist, but I'm not sure that "slavery, rigorous social control by the state of every possible aspect of human life, and the destruction of free agency" would be a change at all.

It would be a vast change. Nothing in Bolivia could possibly compare to life under totalitarian social control of the kind understood as necessary and desirable with socialist ideology, and which we know (in great detail, at this point) was common throughout the socialist world since the October Revolution and especially since the end of WWII.

Somoza's ugly repression, for example, was quite mild when compared to what the Nicaraguan people experienced under Danial Ortega and his Castroite Marxist police state.

[_Droopy]

What would you do if you found out he actually did support much of the party's platform and goals?

The Democrats? I would warn him about apostasy.

And so would I, under those circumstances.

Especially the goals.

[_EAllusion]

The vast majority of the left are religious and believe in God. You can't on the one hand try to portray liberals as godless in order, in your eyes anyway, to defame them while on the other try to leverage the fact that ~85% of the country believes in God. The numbers don't add up.

[_EAllusion]

If workers want to form a union and negotiate for wages and benefits, that's fine with me, with several major provisos, two of which are that union membership is completely voluntary and there is no retaliation or intimidation of those who do not wish to join, and secondly, that if the market dictates that the wages and benefits are uneconomic in nature and unsustainable, that the union give way to market forces and not drive their members into unemployment by shrinking or destroying the company they work for.

By "voluntary" one assumes you mean no closed shop. Unions are already voluntary in the sense that you can choose to join them or not as a term of your employment. And who would disagree with outright intimidation in the form of illegal threats and harassment?

That's not very free market. Like at all. In a free market, a person should be able to say to his employer, "I'll work for you, but as a term of my employment, I will only do so if you hire people from this organization I belong to. In fact, I will only do so if you collect dues to this organization for me." It's up to the employer and other prospective employees to decided whether that is an acceptable arrangement. They can always say no, after all. And a group of people are free to demand whatever wages and benefits they want as a term of employment regardless of whether that'll bring down the company just as a company is free to negotiate whatever terms of employment it wants, even if those will ultimately bring down the company. You of course want both labor and employers to find an arrangement that is mutually beneficial, but sometimes both fail in managing that.

The arguments against closed shop, or its close cousin in the modern form, are anti-trust in nature. But anti-trust regulations impede on the market for good or ill and are generally something you describe with 15 different synonyms for socialist.

So, in summary, you're not very free market at all. You're whatever the current incarnation of Republicans say you should be.

But they are...secularists.

Oh Noes! Like James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and all those other wackaloon anti-Americans? Scary stuff.

For you Droopy, just for people like you, Chris Rhodda recently made her book Liars for Jesus free. Consider it my gift to you to link it:

http://www.liarsforjesus.com/

[_Themis]

If the subject came up, I would not hesitate to raise my hand in a meeting with any GA who is currently a Democrat and accuse them of apostasy.

When you can beat Droppy at being a extreme right wing nut job you have got a real problem. I would love to see any member do this and see just how fast they are called to their very own church court. You posts are a good as we are going to get as an example of what the article linked in the OP was talking about. I suspect you are much more talk then action.

I would also refuse to sign the recommend of any member who publically campaigns for that party on that basis.

This I would love to see as well. You would find yourself released very quickly and potentially facing church discipline if you did not repent. Great stuff Bcspace.