Our Recent Crisis

The recent actions of the executive and legislative branches of our government are most troubling. During a time of crisis one gets to see if individuals truly value our Constitution or whether they simply give it lip service.

I took heart when at the Republican National Convention John McCain talked about cutting government spending. He reiiterated that in the first debate when he said he would veto the first bill that came to his desk with pork in it.

McCain had the opportunity to walk the walk with the recent bail out bill. The bill was bad to begin with and was made worse with the addition of $150 billion in pork. It included six million dollars to help the wooden arrow industry.

This is a classic example of the type of bill that McCain vowed to veto. Instead he voted for the bill.

It was troubling during the vice presidential debate when Governor Sarah Palin said the government was responsible for the crisis because they had not done a good enough job of oversight. This was after declaring that the American public simply wanted government to get out of the way.

Republicans need to decide if they are going to be Republicans or be Democratic clones. The chair of the Utah State Republican Party sent an email out supporting the bail out. The vice chair was on the Doug Wright Show declaring his support for the bail out.

Are we following the counsel of Ezra Taft Benson?

Unfortunately, we as a nation have apostatized in various degrees from different Constitutional principles as proclaimed by the inspired founders. We are fast approaching that moment prophesied by Joseph Smith when he said: “Even this nation will be on the very verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground, and when the Constitution is upon the brink of ruin, this people will be the staff upon which the nation shall lean, and they shall bear the Constitution away from the very verge of destruction” (19 July 1840, as recorded by Martha Jane Knowlton Coray; ms. in Church Historian’s Office, Salt Lake City).
For centuries our forefathers suffered and sacrificed that we might be the recipients of the blessings of freedom. If they were willing to sacrifice so much to establish us as a free people, should we not be willing to do the same to maintain that freedom for ourselves and for future generations? http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=632e79356427b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1


With the passing of each presidential administration more freedom is lost. All to often the executive branch has used the power of the presidency to erode freedom. Roosevelt used the depression to put our country further down the road of socialism. Truman used the horrors of World War II to establish the United Nations. In our day President Bush used September 11th to erode our Constitutional freedoms with such things as the Patriot Act.

Now during this economic crisis our leaders are pushing us further down the road to big government with the bail out package.

The days of personal accountability are gone. McCain "The Pork Fighter" even went so far as to suggest that the American public should buy out bad mortgages. Some individuals have lost their homes to bad circumstances, all to many bought homes they couldn't afford. Instead of saving to make a good down payment and buying a home they could afford, they bought homes that were beyond their means. Now our government is expecting those who played by the rules to bail them out.

Are we willing to make sacrifices to preserve our freedoms? Once given away our freedoms will not return.

It may require sacrifice but preserving our freedoms is well worth the effort.