Democratic Party a Better Home for Mormons

[_richardMdBorn]

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and is pro constitution especially in the area of free speech.

Then you should NOT vote for John McCain, who, with his McCain/Feingold bill, is no friend of free speech. In fact, he even admits to that proudly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gewntRfT-zY

"I'd rather have a 'clean' government than one where First Amendment rights are being respected."

I disagree with McCain here. But BHO's campaign has shown no regard for free speech. Thus, they have twice tried to prevent critics from appearing on a radio program on WGNAM in Chicago. Then, they tried to tie up the phones and generally acted like hooligans. "We just want this to stop" was a typical comment by a caller.

[_moksha]

Even the thought of voting democrat would seem like self hatred were I to do something like that, and I'm not even really Mormon anymore. The Democratic party goes against every value or truth I've ever known.

All of us were brought up with some value or other. I know Franklin Roosevelt grew up as a Patrician, but his social consciousness changed and he became a Democrat. However, many resented him for that and called him a traitor to his class. To one raised to embrace right-wing values, being a Democrat would indeed run contrary to that upbringing, unless soul clapped it hands and clapped its hands louder for every callousness chiseled into it.

[_richardMdBorn]

Even the thought of voting democrat would seem like self hatred were I to do something like that, and I'm not even really Mormon anymore. The Democratic party goes against every value or truth I've ever known.

All of us were brought up with some value or other. I know Franklin Roosevelt grew up as a Patrician, but his social consciousness changed and he became a Democrat. However, many resented him for that and called him a traitor to his class. To one raised to embrace right-wing values, being a Democrat would indeed run contrary to that upbringing, unless soul clapped it hands and clapped its hands louder for every callousness chiseled into it.

FDR was raised as a Democrat.

In the 18th century the Roosevelt family had divided into two branches, the "Hyde Park Roosevelts", who by the late 19th century were Democrats, and the "Oyster Bay Roosevelts", who were Republicans. President Theodore Roosevelt, an Oyster Bay Republican, was Franklin's fifth cousin. Despite their political differences, the two branches remained friendly: James Roosevelt met his wife, at a Roosevelt family gathering at Oyster Bay, and Franklin was to marry Theodore's niece.

http://en.freepedia.org/FDR.html

[_Droopy]

The Democrats could make a strong case that due to their commitment to diversity and fairness, at least the Mormons would be accepted. Perhaps they might also point out that policies aimed at benefiting the greedy are not in line with Mormon theology.

Moksha's first claim here collapses upon the fact that the Democrats are not committed to either diversity or fairness; they are committed to government enforced status based power relationships between groups (Affirmative Action, multiculturalism etc.) and socialism, which isn't "fair" but simply the shifting of responsibility of success or failure in the market from individuals and their personal decisions to the state.

The second claim is simply sanctimonious moral posturing.

[_Droopy]

BC, do you see the Mormons staying with a party that thinks Mormons are too strange to ever be anything other than donation givers?

I completely do not understand why you think the Democrats would reject Mormons. Did you not see their earnest offer in the quote box?

I'm not aware of the Republican party being hostile to Mormons, except among some elements and certain individuals.

The real problem, Moksha, is that no group is too strange for the modern Democratic party.

[_Droopy]

Stating that good Mormons can't be Democrat is BS.

Yes, in the Late nineteenth century that very well may have been true. This is now 2008, and this is the modern, post sixties Democratic party.

B.C. is correct when he points out that there is little within the ideology and platform of the Democratic party today that can be readily harmonized with LDS teachings, not only in social and cultural areas, but economic and IR areas as well.

As with Reagan, the Democratic party left the Mormons, just as it left him. They did not necessarily leave it.

[_Droopy]

This is too simplistic. Money is fungible. It all goes in one pot and is used for a variety of causes. I could say I will cancel out my out of work activities and pay more taxes so we can invest in green technologies that we can produce and revolutionize our industrial base, or I could say my taxes are going up to pay off the national debt.

Come now Jason. The money will be spent in whatever manner the political class believes it can best ingratiate the American public to itself. You will have no say over that once the money is in the federal treasury.

Green technologies? There's almost no market for most of them because they are not economically viable at the present time, which is precisely why government seeks to subsidize them. They will not revolutionize a single thing until the technology is ready and they are economically viable in a competitive market. Government subsidization is a dead giveaway that the product or technology has little or no economic potential in the private sector (think the large scale application of wind power, and ethanol).

All of this misses much of the point in any case, which is that the power to tax is the power to destroy; it is the power of the political class to reward friends and punish enemies. Much of our present taxation is also little more than legal plunder; little of it can be justified constitutionally or rationally. Taxation, especially at high levels, is therefore just as much a moral issues as an economic or political one.

[_Droopy]

Please explain the United Order in light of your comment.

1. The United Order is entered into by the free will and choice of the participants, without coercion or threat of legal sanction. Unlike socialism, free agency is the pivotal principle mediating all economic and social relations. One may come into the system and leave it as one wishes.

2. Socialism seeks to redistribute wealth by force in the name of equalizing economic and social conditions between human beings. The United Order seeks voluntary charity through covenant to help the poor attain a higher state of economic functioning in the name of the concept of charity, in which individuals give of their excess substance to alleviate suffering, not because they place some ultimate value on the concept of "equality" but because the core of the Gospel is love of our fellow beings as of ourselves.

Nothing in the scriptures or early Church writings indicate any attempt to equalize economic conditions between citizens or create a classless society. There are to be no rich and poor in the United Order, but this does not imply an elimination of variations of economc condition. It does imply a general narrowing of the gap between very rich and needy poor, and, perhaps more importantly, a society in which, even though economic classes or levels of relative prosperity exist:

a. The population is neither envious or resentful of those who have more than they do, as their primary concentration is upon building the Kingdom of God, not noticing that someone has an SUV while they have an old Toyota Corolla.

b. Excess money goes into the Bishop's storehouse, not to a secular state populated by politicians seeking power and votes. The money is for the sustenance of the poor, not, as with all secular welfare states of which we have any knowledge, including our own, the perpetuation of dependency.

In Zion, all personal property really belongs to the Lord, and is his to use in building the Kingdom and sustaining the poor among them. In a secular socialist society, all money de facto belongs to the state, and is used to support and sustain the state, including through the creation and perpetuation of dependency among entire populations-and hence ingratiation of those populations to the state.

c. In socialism, all personal property is communal. In Zion, all personal property is communal by covenant, not necessarily in actual fact and at all times.

d. Socialism destroys and eats wealth. It can create nothing. Therefore, whatever form the United Order ultimately takes, it will have to remain bound to the laws and principles of economics (at least until the Millenium, in which the laws of economics will no longer be a factor) for if the poor are to be cared for, the economy will have to be substantially capitalistic for there to be net wealth created from which the Bishop's storehouse can draw its resources. Capital will have to be allowed to be created, saved, stored, and invested in profit making, productive economic activities with little interference.

Again, the Bishop's storehouse is maintained not from coerced taxation by a covenant relationship that respects free agency.

One might call the United Order "communitarian", but not commun-ism

Then you should NOT vote for John McCain, who, with his McCain/Feingold bill, is no friend of free speech. In fact, he even admits to that proudly:

McCain's record here is abysmal, but he has not yet, as has Obama, stooped to the threat of litigation and Justice Department investigation to anyone who criticizes him or mentions his associations with very unsavory individuals over his adult lifetime.

McCain is clearly and distinctly the lesser evil here.

Alan Keys is, unfortunately, not on the ballot.

[_moksha]

BC, do you see the Mormons staying with a party that thinks Mormons are too strange to ever be anything other than donation givers?

I completely do not understand why you think the Democrats would reject Mormons. Did you not see their earnest offer in the quote box?

I'm not aware of the Republican party being hostile to Mormons, except among some elements and certain individuals.

Mitt Romney was a perfectly good candidate for the Republicans. He was tall, good looking and rich. He was younger, in much better health than McCain and was less prone to fits of anger. He was less of a rube than Huckabee. He was even singing the conservative anthem. So what happened? He was passed over because he was a Mormon. The Republicans outside the Jell-O Belt did not want a Mormon as their President.

The real problem, Moksha, is that no group is too strange for the modern Democratic party.

Then we agree that Mormons would be well accepted.

[_asbestosman]

Nothing in the scriptures or early Church writings indicate any attempt to equalize economic conditions between citizens or create a classless society. There are to be no rich and poor in the United Order, but this does not imply an elimination of variations of economc condition.

Are you sure?

D&C 49:20 But it is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin