A Message of Hope and Warning - Ezra T. Benson

Reality Check: Mitt Romney's Budget Plan

http://www.fox19.com/story/17096680/reality-check-fact-checking-mitt-romneys-budget-plan

Not Yours To Give by Ron Paul

Ron Paul is so committed to not using tax payer funds for anything not explicitly allowed in the Constitution that he volunteered his own money for the Congressional Medal of Honor for Mother Teresa.

All we hear about is "Ron Paul hates Mother Teresa! He voted against giving her the Congressional Medal of Honor!" But you know what really happened? He was concerned about spending $30,000 on a medal because those funds were coming from tax payers. He told the members of Congress that they should each contribute $100 to pay for the medal instead. $100 is what these guys spend on a bottle of wine! But did any of them join him? No. They of course selfishly wanted to keep their own money and instead use the money from the American public.

And the media reports that Ron Paul is a hater.

Ron Paul obviously respects Mother Teresa more than any of those other members of Congress. He put down his own money while they refused.

Calls for Aggression Against Iran?

Just wanted to share this video:

Here's the link if the video won't play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oPfAdziAoY&feature=colike

Ezra T. Benson on Foreign Policy

“There is one and only one legitimate goal of United States foreign policy. It is a narrow goal, a nationalistic goal: the preservation of our national independence. Nothing in the Constitution grants that the President shall have the privilege of offering himself as a world leader. He’s our executive; he’s on our payroll, in necessary; he’s supposed to put our best interests in front of those of other nations. Nothing in the Constitution nor in logic grants to the President of the United States or to Congress the power to influence the political life of other countries, to ‘uplift’ their cultures, to bolster their economies, to feed their peoples or even to defend them against their enemies.” - Ezra Taft Benson


See here: http://www.latterdayconservative.com/ezra-taft-benson/united-states-foreign-policy/

Where Is That Money Going?

Take a look at this graph.

For the entire article, go here.

Public Education

Public schools. Obviously, public schools are a socialist program. I am opposed to socialist programs because they don't treat people equally. Public schools are another type of legal plunder. Or, as Jefferson put it, a form of tyranny:

“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; even forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern.”– Thomas Jefferson

Yes, I believe it is morally wrong to force anyone to pay for the education of someone else.  

"I am opposed to free education as much as I am opposed to taking property from one man and giving it to another… I do not believe in allowing my charities to go through the hands of robbers who pocket nine-tenths themselves and give one tenth to the poor… Would I encourage free schools by taxation? No!" (Brigham Young)

“If it would be wrong for the government to adopt an official religion, then, for the same reasons, it would be wrong for the government to adopt official education policies. The moral case for freedom of religion stands or falls with that for freedom of education. A society that champions freedom of religion but at the same time countenances state regulation of education has a great deal of explaining to do.” – James R. Otteson, The Independent Review, Spring 2000, “Freedom of Religion and Public Schooling”

But if we approach it from the other side--rather than sticking to principles we look at results (always the wrong approach in my book)--is it still a bad idea? Does it do some good? Is it really that awful to make education available to anyone without cost? Is that really the purpose of public education?

“If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies.” – Milton Friedman,1976 Nobel Prize in economics.

So, then, what is the motive of public education? If it isn't really to help the poor (though this is naturally touted as the sole reason), what is it? 

“The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.” – H.L. Mencken

“State education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly alike one another, …in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.” – John Stuart Mill (1859)

Of course, controlling the education of children is the easiest way to control the way they think. 

“The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.”– Karl Marx (1848)

Obviously, I don't think every public school teacher is out there to turn my child into a drone. Or a lemming. Or whatever. For the most part, I think they are doing the best they can with a fundamentally immoral system. And even those in Washington who are proponents of public education--most of them probably have altruistic motives.

But it has to come down to the fact that socialist programs like public schools are morally wrong.

And if I believe that, what can I do but try to convince you of the same?