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19 Responses to “Liberty v. Equality, or God v. Satan”

And how exactly does the most egalitarian of all doctrines, the united order, fit in with this? Is the highest law of the gospel the most evil?

Comment # 1 left by jeff g on May 5th, 2006

I might have misunderstood Wade’s entire message (or maybe I have forgotten part of it while I comment here) But it seemed to me that he was criticizing social egalitarianism whereas the united order, as far as I understood it, was almost entirely economic.

Is that incorrect?

Comment # 2 left by Ryan on May 5th, 2006

The United Order is not coerced. It consists of people voluntarily (i.e. using their agency) giving everything they have to the community. The beauty of the U.O. is that it can only work if people are “willing” to do it. It falls apart when people are either coerced (e.g. communism) or not willing to do it themselves (e.g. Missouri and parts of Utah in the late 19th Century).

That’s how it “fits in” in my mind, but I could be way off?

Comment # 3 left by Wade on May 5th, 2006

Wade–

I agree socities enter troubling waters when they try to assure equality of outcome for everyone, regardless of a person’s choices.

Nevertheless, I have to question an underlying assumption inherent in your analysis: righteousness begets temporal success. You indicate that those who make the right choices in life will generally experience better outcomes. Sadly, however, this is often not the case. Certainly both Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ would be quick to testify that righteousness often brings sadness. Furthermore, many (even in this, one of the “freest” of countries) suffer because of circumstance. There are, for instance, 44 million people in America with no health care coverage. Most of these people work and many of these people are children. By what justice should these people be without the most basic of healthcare? Those who advocate for universal health care are often considered “egalitarian” and, indeed, many of them are secularists, yet their intentions seem to me quite Christian.

Indeed, often those who are most in need of the benefits of “egaltarian” programs are the sick, the afflicted, the prison-bound, and the starving. Yet, the most pointed admonition I recall concerning such people was given come thousands of years ago by the Savior: “and inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these thy brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

Christ did not specify whether those who were suffering had made correct choices, He only said if we help them, we help Him. In fact, He gave this as the criteria which would separate those who will be among the sheep from those who will be among the goats. Certainly, this does not mean we should abandon morality or abdicate the dictates of consciences; but helping those who most need help does not seem to me either inherently secular or, much less, evil. Indeed, isn’t part of Christ’s infinite empathy the ability to help those who least deserve His aid. To paraphrase King Benjamin: how justified are we in denying the beggar (or, for that matter, the sick, the poor, or the sinner) when, in fact, we are all beggars, spiritually sick, emotionally poor, and sinners in the sight of God?

Comment # 4 left by tyler on May 5th, 2006

Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ would be quick to testify that righteousness often brings sadness.

I might suggest that your examples here are a bit misplaced. Christ and JS were both called to live and die as martyrs for the gospel. Using their lives as a example of how righteousness does not lead to a positive outcome in life is probably a bit apples/oranges.

Maybe the Lord’s admonition that wickedness never was happiness (and it’s implied corollary) might be a better rule of thumb for those of us who are called to perform less prominent duties.

Comment # 5 left by Ryan on May 5th, 2006

Tyler:

Very well done my friend! Thank you for your insights — you have successfully pointed out the paradox. The problem is summed up in this sentence from my post: “social inequality is the fundamental and unavoidable result of liberty”.

This is clear for anyone to see, I think. But the real question then becomes: Why? I think it is because human beings are selfish by nature! As President Faust has pointed out, a key characteristic of secularism is selfishness. Unfortunately, egalitarianism is also a key characteristic of secularism. With these two philosophies allied together, it is hell on earth.

I am now 27 years old. I have never had health insurance in my life (I grew up in a poor family–I can count the number of doctor’s visits I’ve had in my life, that I can remember, on one hand). I still don’t have insurance. So trust me, I know exactly what you are trying to say. The world really is upside-down.

But the problem remains. It will always be so as long as we live in mortality–it has always been. If not, there would be no need for any other kingdom than Celestial. We will be graded throughout the kingdoms based upon our *choices*. Because we have liberty, by default there will be inequality — we make different choices which create inequities.

My post was an attempt to show that when governments seek to “right the wrong” of social inequality, they deprive mortals of their agency through coercion — coercing virtue. It will always fail because we have to make the choice to be charitable, we have to choose as individuals to see ourselves as lower than the dust and to give our lives in the service of others. Only then will inequities cease.

The problem is the fact that we are naturaly selfish! The ONLY thing that changes a person from their natural selfish tendancies is the Spirit of God — having religion! Herein lies the other side of the problem: we are continuing to increase our rejection of God and secularism is making its way onto the stage like never before.

The god of this world reigns, the result is mass confusion, hatred, and as you say, sadness.

Comment # 6 left by Wade on May 6th, 2006

Ryan:

I agree with you. The Book of Mormon is virtually filled with the saying “if ye are obedient/righteous, ye shall prosper in the land”. Sure, I’ve heard people spin the word prosper. But those who have read the oft repeated promise in context should realize the promise regards the temporal at least as much as the spiritual.

The problem is that people get mixed up by applying the promise in reverse — this is a logical falacy. Just because a person is “prosperous” does not automatically mean they must be righteous.

Comment # 7 left by Wade on May 6th, 2006

“My post was an attempt to show that when governments seek to ‘right the wrong’ of social inequality, they deprive mortals of their agency through coercion.”

Wade, as someone who has never had health insurance, you are well-qualified to rebuff my statements (incidentally, if we ever end up in the same city once I am a doctor, by all means bring your children to see me, health insurance or no). I’m still not seeing, however, the logic that supports the statement above. For ease of discussion, let’s stick with the example of health care. Many of my classmates belong to an organization called “UAEM–Universities Allied for Essential Medicine.” Their mission is to call on universities to put pressure on the government to assure all people have access to basic health care. In other words, they would be happy if revenue from the U.S. income tax were used to pay for basic doctor’s visits, prenatal care, vaccinations, antibiotics, etc.

Now, as you point out, the income tax takes more money from the rich than it does from the poor. Furthermore, since the rich can afford health insurance, the plan I briefly outline above would also use more tax money to benefit the poor than to benefit the rich. So, it seems it is trying to secure some kind of social equality. Who, however, if this plan trying to coerce? Whose agency is deprived? What is evil about this plan? There may be a thousand policy-related and/or logistical problems inherent in such an idea, but I still don’t really see how it can be construed as evil or compulsory.

Ryan,

I am familiar with the nearly-ubiquitous Book of Mormon promise to which you refer. As you point out, there may no more obvious lesson in the BoM (besides, of course, that salvation comes only in and through Jesus Christ) than that righteousness brings prosperity. Indeed, even beyond the stating of that promise, the BoM also constantly shows civilizations whose ebb and flow correlates directly with their righteousness–hence the sinusoidal appearance of the “pride cycle.”

Still, I believe modern examples must convince us that the notion that “righteousness brings temporal prosperity” must be a bit too simple. You mention that Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith are bad example because they were called to serrve as martyrs–but what about the rest of the Saints during the first one-hundred years after the Gospel was restored? Few of them had any significant material means and those who did usually gave them up for the good of the Kingdom. The Saints were, in fact, driven en masse from place to place before mobs who burned their homes and raped the women. Misunderstanding and misfortune awaited them seemingly everywhere until they fled to a god-forsaken (but not really) land in the midst of the rocky mountains; and, during their trek there, many buried women, children, fathers, and friends. Now, you may point to verses where the Lord explains that the Saints were being punished for their disbelief or iniquity–but were they more disbelieving or more iniquitous than those who lived comfortably along the East Coast or in Britain at the same time?

Similarly, those I taught on my mission in Mexico had nothing of material prosperity. Some of my dearest friends in the village of Bosques, for example, lived in a cinderblock home consisting of a kitchen/living room (8×8) and one bedroom (8×12), with a rudimentary toilet outside behind a curtain–sewage seeped from under their house and joined the trickles from other homes draining down the dirt street to collect at the bottom of the hill.

Their oldest son has now served a mission and the family has been married in the Temple. So far as I am aware, however, they live in the same house. They have, indeed, “prospered” in many ways, but I cannot see how they their temporal circumstances demonstrate monetary prosperity.

Finally, as you have both observed, the UO is quite different from communism or other forced social equlity programs because it denies its members the ability to sacrifice (how can they sacrifice if the government forces them to give things away). Nevertheless, I believe there are programs we might institute in the U.S. that would be both egalitarian and appropriate. A progressive tax, for instance (where the rich pay a larger percent of their income than the poor), would help to redistribute income so the poor would have more and the rich would have less. True, this might in some cases take money from those who have earned it by their own initiative and right choices. I think, however, that, in many more cases, it would simply provide necessities for those who suffer though they have never made any wrong choices to warrant their temporal poverty. I think, for instance, of children born into pocerty-stricken homes who pine for the basics of life. If nothing else, such suffering innocents convince me some re-distirubtion of wealth would be appropriate.

Comment # 8 left by tyler on May 6th, 2006

P.S. Thanks for the engaging discussion!

Comment # 9 left by tyler on May 6th, 2006

Please forgive the sloppy nature of my posts; we have an exam on Monday and I have been posting very early in the morning or quite late at night.

Comment # 10 left by tyler on May 6th, 2006

Tyler:

First off, I thank you for being so cordial and honest throughout this discussion. I appreciate your willingness to engage and for your gracious offer. (I’m hoping to make sufficient for my family’s needs–if I can just make it through law school).

You asked: “Who, however, if this plan trying to coerce? Whose agency is deprived? What is evil about this plan?”

These are good questions. For me, the answer is actually in the description you gave of the organization you mentioned. You said: “Their mission is to call on universities to put pressure on the government to assure all people have access to basic health care. In other words, they would be happy if revenue from the U.S. income tax were used…. (Bold mine)

The answer is in bold: by empowering the government to take from those who have and give to those who don’t is advocating theft. It sounds really wild and crazy, nevertheless it is fundamentally true. Government derives its power from the governed (this is a founding principal of our Republic). As such, government cannot legitimately or rightly do what an individual cannot legitimately do (I say legitimate because they certainly have the power to do virtually anything, e.g. Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union).

I’m sure you’ll agree a person cannot “legitimately” or morally take property from one person and give it to another without consent. Indeed, such behavior is violative of one of the ten commandments. So, for government to take property from the “rich” to give to the “poor” is not only illegitimate, but it is in effect stealing. Moreover, redistribution of wealth is coercive. The purpose of it is to make all people “equal”. On the surface, this is a good motive. But if you think about it, I think you’ll have to admit it is coercive action; it forces people to be philanthropic, which of course is an oxymoron. One cannot be charitable by force.

This is where I come to the tie-in between egalitarianism (which has the appearance of goodness or virtue) and evil. Again, you have said that egalitarianism is simply to give government the power to assure all have access to services. This rings a loud bell in my mind. The sound emanating from the bell sounds strikingly familiar to the plan proposed by Lucifer before the world was. Said he “I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost”. But God refused this plan because He said it would “destroy the agency of man”.

Speaking of egalitarianism, Edmond Burke said this: “A perfect equality will indeed be produced–that is to say, equal wretchedness, equal beggary, and, on the part of the partitioners, a woeful, helpless, and desperate disappointment. Such is the event of all compulsory equalizations. They pull down what is above; they never raise what is below; and they depress high and low together beneath the level of what was originally the lowest.”

It seems pretty simple and straightforward to me. History has proven egalitarianism as disasterous; it retards initiative and stifles progress because it pulls down those who have the drive and ability to gain rather than fostering charity and wilfull philanthropy. (See Benson, This Nation Shall Endure, p. 116).

However, I would like to say that the main problem arises from our selfish nature. Because we are so individualistic, we don’t naturally have the inclination to give when we have abundance. So too, people will have absolutely no incentive to continue producing in the manner they currently produce if they know they cannot keep the fruit of their labor. But even when these selfish and individualistic people refuse to give on their own, when they produce on such a large scale, they unavoidably provide opportunity for thousands of others to share in the process (it takes more than one man’s drive to succeed–e.g. Henry Ford’s factories etc).

So, I want everyone to know I don’t advocate for selfishness. I think it is ugly and is what produces many, if not all, of the evils in mortality. But government cannot eradicate it, ONLY RELIGION CAN! People must be motivated from within the change.

Government can compel equality no more than Satan can compel spiritual equality, it is a fundamental truth. It is a truth history has proven. Yet, we as a country seek more and more to experiment with it as time goes on.

Comment # 11 left by Wade on May 7th, 2006

I wanted to revisit the concept of United Order.

For those interested in a detailed break-down of what the United Order actually is and how it is supposed to work, I recommend reading this talk given by President Benson.

Quoting President J. Reuben Clark, President Benson said, “Is the united order a communal system? Emphatically not. It never has been and never will be. It is ‘intensely individualistic.’ Does the united order eliminate private ownership of property? No. ‘The fundamental principle of this system [is] the private ownership of property’” (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, October 1942, p. 57).

It is therefore a red herring to claim the U.O. is the equivalent of the egalitarian movement in the western world today.

Comment # 12 left by Wade on May 7th, 2006

Very good post and comments guys! Sorry I missed it up to now, busy weekend.

I agree in the basic sense that you can not have freedom and equality in such things as economics in a society.

O have been engaged in some debate over MMP with Geoff over at the Thang lately. I think one of his problems is that ultimately he does not agree with the degrees of salvation. He feels ultimately everyone should be either exalted or destroyed both body and spirit because he can’t bear to see anyone endure the Terrestrial Kindom forever. Again it goes back to the same thing, if you have eternal free will then you must accept a range of results from that freedom. Don’t you?

Comment # 13 left by Eric on May 8th, 2006

Wade–

First, I emphatically agree with some of your points. First, there is no question charity cannot be cumpulsory–that notion is, as you point out, an oxymoron. Second, there is also no question communisim is diametrically opposed to the UO. While communism pretends to create equality, it really debases the many while enriching the few; it is also cumpulsory while the UO is voluntary. I really have no disagreement with you as far as opinions on the UO go.

I’m still a bit doubtful as to your arguments against egalitarianism in the U.S., however, for the following reason. As you point out, we live in a republic. When a republic works, as you also point out, it derives its power from the people–the governed are ultimately the governing. That being the case, we the people are responsible for the actions of the government. At some level, at least, we elected those making the laws and, therefore, we chose–to some extent–the laws the lawmakers make. U.S. government reflects (or at least it should) the ideals of the majority–on a macro scale, anyway, we are not coerced because we choose the people enacting the laws. Obviously, we do not agree with every law made, but the majority of us (at least of those who care enough to vote) agree with the zeitgeist of those who hold office. If we don’t, we kick them out.

Imagine, then, a great groundswell of charity–a mass Christian conversion wherein the great majority of Americans decided it is more important to care for the poor than to buy new cars, build new freeways, or create new computers. Now imagine this great mass of people electing officers who zealously enact laws and programs to bring the poor our of poverty. Will some U.S. citizens disagree with the program? Sure. But I still tend to think the overruling motivations for this kind of program would be good.

I just don’t believe such a happening would be evil.

I think, though, these ideas must be analyzed on a macro and micro level. On the micro level–there is no question that such a program would do nothing per se to convert souls to Christ. I am firmly convinced that the only way to fix the world’s problems in the end is to bring souls to Christ. That is why I spend more time attempting to become like the Savior personally than I do trying to advocate social causes (though I believe those important). As President Benson pointed out, the only real cure is to take the slum out of the man, not the man out of the slum. Nonetheless, I know there are many good people without a full knowledge of light and truth who are doing the very best they know how with the light and knowledge they have been given. Many of the most charitable of those souls do not believe in Christian conversion, per se, and so they currently work to take men out of the slums. I don’t believe their quest is evil, I believe it is noble. I enjoy working with them because they are men and women of integrity–I sense no avarice–and certainly not satanism (see the title of this post)–in them.

That, anyway, is my two cents. With them and forty-eight others you can buy a can of coke (de-caf., of course).

Comment # 14 left by tyler on May 8th, 2006

Tyler:

I’m glad there are people like you out in the world; I think you have a pretty good, even-keeled view of things. Thanks for your comments.

However, I do have one final thing to say: I think “good” people can actually espouse or believe in evil ideas. The purpose of my post was obviously (I hope obvious but maybe it wasn’t) a macro approach to egalitarianism. I was not targeting anyone specific because generally I don’t think it’s productive to do. I think a lot of people are generally good, but that many of them espouse and believe in evil ideas, i.e. ideas that appear good, but in the end are actually designed to lead people into bondage.

After all, Satan’s plan seems very charitable: all would be saved and on equal footing through his plan. But his plan would also snuff out freedom.

That said, I don’t think we’re too far off in our views. You may be seeing my arguments on more of a micro level and I was using a macro approach. When speaking of the micro, I fully agree with your view!

So, thanks for the discussion once again.

Comment # 15 left by Wade on May 8th, 2006

Eric:

I think one of his problems is that ultimately he does not agree with the degrees of salvation. He feels ultimately everyone should be either exalted or destroyed both body and spirit because he can’t bear to see anyone endure the Terrestrial Kindom forever.

Ah yes, this subject is worthy of its own post! I have gone round and round with many people in regard to gradations of salvation. You’re right, the egalitarian spirit cannot understand or see the virtue in gradations. With freedom, gradations/hierarchies are inevitable!

Also, I think a lot of members, including myself, don’t understand the “glory” of both the Terrestial and Telestial Kindoms. After all, they are called kindoms of “glory”.

Comment # 16 left by Wade on May 8th, 2006

For an very recent example of why socialized medicine does not work, just read yesterday’s New York Times.

Apparently, if you live in England and can’t afford high-priced dental care, but must resort to the socialized system, you will find yourself waiting months to have your pain relieved! You can read about it here. Or if you have access to NYT, just read the article for yourself from yesterday’s paper.

I thought it was interesting such a so-called liberal paper would publish the ills of socialism.

Comment # 17 left by Wade on May 8th, 2006

Not all egalitarian movements are communal in nature. Many are less communal than the UO. Just because the UO still mantained private ownership, and held people accountable for their stewardships over their own property (some of which was given to them by the community after it was given to the community by a different individual.)

So, just because it wasn’t communist doesn’t mean it wasn’t egalitarian in nature. The UO was a perfect example of economic egalitarianism. It went beyond the simple redistribution in equal amounts. The UO tried to distribute in a manner much closer to Marx’s egalitarian maxim “from each acording to his ability to each acording to his need” than any governmental system of communism ever did.
The UO was not communist in that there wasn’t a community or government ownership of everything, but there certainly was an egalitarian redistribution of wealth.

Further, Wade states “The United Order is not coerced. It consists of people voluntarily (i.e. using their agency) giving everything they have to the community.”
Have you read any journals from participants? For many people it was volutary the way the calling in the primary (or in RS or Elders quorum, or wherever) that you don’t actually want is voluntary. For their children it wasn’t volutary at all. And the concept of individual ownership was very limited. Most journals and stories show a more communal ownership than president Benson mentioned. There have been a few general conference talks that reference this. The story that springs to mind first is Orderville and the desire among teenage boys for new fashionable pants.
http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1989.htm/ensign%20november%201989.htm/remembrance%20and%20gratitude%20.htm

Comment # 18 left by Mike on May 10th, 2006

That link didn’t work-
hopefully, this one will

Comment # 19 left by Mike on May 10th, 2006

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