War

You are currently browsing articles tagged War.

Why Jaredites Fell

February 28, 2010 in Book of Mormon by Greg | 11 comments

In the Book of Mormon, the Jaredites were a group of people named after their leader Jared. Their history is almost exclusively found in the book of Ether.

According to this record, they were led from the “great tower” – presumably the tower of Babel, mentioned in Genesis 11:1-9 – to a “land of promise”, somewhere in the Americas. Like the Nephites who came after them, they grew to a large population but were eventually destroyed by internecine warfare.

Without making direct reference to the Gadianton Robbers, in 1940 J. Reuben Clark, Jr. summarized the fall of the Jaredite nation in this manner:

Journey of the Jaredites Across Asia by Minerva TeichertWe are not given the step-by-step backsliding of this Jareditic civilization till it reached the social and governmental chaos the record sets out, but those steps seem wholly clear from the results. Put into modern terms, we can understand them. First there was a forsaking of the righteous life, and the working of wickedness; then must have come the extortion and oppression of the poor by the rich; then retaliation and reprisal by the poor against the rich; then would come a cry to share the wealth which should belong to all; then the easy belief that society owed every man a living whether he worked or not; then the keeping of a great body of idlers; then when community revenues failed to do this, as they always have failed and always will fail, a self-helping by one to the goods of his neighbor; and finally when the neighbor resisted, as resist he must, or starve with his family, then death to the neighbor and all that belonged to him. This was the decreed “fulness of iniquity.”

Then came the end; the Jaredites were wiped out in accordance with “the everlasting decree of God.” A nation had been born; it had grown to maturity; then to a powerful manhood; had then gone on to sin, decay, and destruction, and all because its people had refused to heed the promises and commandments of Him who is their Creator and Father, all because the people who possessed the land had failed “to serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ.” (Ether 2:12.)1

Sources:

  1. “The American Republic”. Prophets, Principles and National Survival. The Inspired Constitution. 28 Feb 2010.↩

Secret Government

January 19, 2010 in Communism by Greg | 1 comment

The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis is a 1987 Public Broadcasting Service video documentary with Bill Moyers following the Iran-Contra affair – ostensibly, an effort to prevent the spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere.1 According to Mr. Moyers,

The Secret Government is an interlocking network of official functionaries, spies, mercenaries, ex-generals, profiteers and superpatriots, who, for a variety of motives, operate outside the legitimate institutions of government. Presidents have turned to them when they can’t win the support of the Congress or the people, creating that unsupervised power so feared by the framers of our Constitution.

The documentary traces the history of the secret government to the National Security Act of 1947 which was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. It “realigned and reorganized the U.S. Armed Forces, foreign policy, and Intelligence Community apparatus in the aftermath of World War II.”2

Although originally intended to be only an “intelligence-gathering” organization, under the auspices of this act the CIA quickly became an “operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government.”3 According to the documentary “a secret report [was] prepared for the White House in 1954 by a group of distinguished citizens headed by former president Herbert Hoover”:

It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto accepted norms of human conduct do not apply. If the United States is to survive, longstanding American concepts of fair play must be reconsidered. We must learn to subvert, sabotage, and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, more effective methods than those used against us.

Secret Government »»

  1. See Wolf, Julie. “The Iran-Contra Affair”. PBS. 18 Jan 2010 for background on this event.↩
  2. “National Security Act of 1947”. Wikipedia. 17 Jan 2010.↩
  3. Truman, Harry S. “Limit CIA Role to Intelligence”. 22 Dec 1963. Washington Post. 17 Jan 2010. See also, McGovern, Ray. “Break the CIA into Two”. Consortium News. 17 Jan 2010.↩

Thomas Paine and Paper Money

November 21, 2009 in Money by Greg | 10 comments

The following is the first in a series of articles exploring the history and effects of paper money.

Thomas Paine is well known as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States as well as an author and pamphleteer. In January 1776 Mr. Paine published Common Sense, the pro-independence monograph he anonymously published shortly after his immigration to America in 1774.

In 1786 Thomas Paine wrote about the effects of paper money in comparison to Gold and Silver Coin as Tender in Payment of debts.1 He wrote:

Thomas Paine Man has no share in making gold or silver; all that his labors and ingenuity can accomplish is, to collect it from the mine, refine it for use and give it an impression, or stamp it into coin.

Its being stamped into coin adds considerably to its convenience but nothing to its value. It has then no more value than it had before. Its value is not in the impression but in itself. Take away the impression and still the same value remains. Alter it as you will, or expose it to any misfortune that can happen, still the value is not diminished. It has a capacity to resist the accidents that destroy other things. It has, therefore, all the requisite qualities that money can have, and is a fit material to make money of — and nothing which has not all those properties can be fit for the purpose of money.

Thomas Paine and Paper Money »»

  1. Paine, Thomas. “Thomas Paine on Paper Money”. 24 Apr 2008. Ludwig von Mises Institute. 21 Nov 2009.↩

First Presidency Letter to U.S. Treasury in 1941

November 20, 2009 in Socialism by Greg | 13 comments

Tonight I came across Connor Boyack’s post that contains the full text of a First Presidency letter to the United States Treasury in 1941. This is one of those rare posts which deserve to be read top to bottom, given its length. Here is how it begins:

US_Treasury_building For several years I have been citing a quote in various posts, emails, discussions, and other settings, allegedly from the First Presidency in 1941. This quote is both potent and largely unprecedented, and its implications are especially interesting.

The quote is as follows:

The Church as a Church does not believe in war and yet since its organization whenever war has come we have done our part … we do thoroughly believe in building up our home defenses to the maximum extent necessary, but we do not believe that aggression should be carried on in the name and under the false cloak of defense. We therefore look with sorrowing eyes at the present use to which a great part of the funds being raised by taxes and by borrowing is being put … We believe that our real threat comes from within and not from without, and it comes from the underlying spirit common to Naziism, Fascism, and Communism, namely, the spirit which would array class against class, which would set up a socialistic state of some sort, which would rob the people of the liberties which we possess under the Constitution, and would set up such a reign of terror as exists now in many parts of Europe. . . .1

A must read if you have the time.

Sources:

  1. “A Letter to the Treasury from the LDS First Presidency in 1941”. 16 Nov 2009. Connor’s Conundrums. 19 Nov 2009.↩

How to Survive a Nuclear Attack

May 2, 2009 in Emergency Preparedness by Greg | 3 comments

Yesterday, a friend pointed me to this video by Irwin Redlener1 on how to survive a nuclear attack. Over 30 years ago, Bruce R. McConkie stated:

We do not say that all of the Saints will be spared and saved from the coming day of desolation. But we do say there is no promise of safety and no promise of security except for those who love the Lord and who are seeking to do all that he commands.

It may be, for instance, that nothing except the power of faith and the authority of the priesthood can save individuals and congregations from the atomic holocausts that surely shall be.

And so we raise the warning voice and say: Take heed; prepare; watch and be ready. There is no security in any course except the course of obedience and conformity and righteousness.2

YouTube Preview Image

For additional information on surviving a nuclear detonation, wikiHow provides the following advice:

  1. Keep an eye on the news.
  2. Learn as much as you can about the different types of nuclear weapons; e.g. fission, fusion, and EMP weapons.
  3. Seek shelter immediately.
  4. Remeber: it’s not the initial blast that creates the high death toll; it’s radiation exposure.
  5. Know the types of radiation particles; e.g. alpha, beta, and gamma.
  6. Begin reinforcing your shelter from the inside.
  7. Plan on staying in your shelter for a minimum of 200 hours (8-9 days). Under no circumstances leave the shelter in the first forty-eight hours.
  8. Ration your supplies.
  9. Wear all clothing (hats, gloves, goggles, closed sleeve shirt, etc.), especially when outside to help prevent Beta burns.
  10. Treat radiation and thermal burns.
  11. Feel free to assist people with radiation sickness, also called Radiation Syndrome.3

Sources:

  1. Redlener “is the author of Americans at Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now (Knopf, 2006). Dr. Redlener is president and co-founder (with singer song-writer Paul Simon) of The Children’s Health Fund (CHF), director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness and Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Redlener was recently appointed to the congressionally-established National Commission on Children and Disasters.” (“Irwin Redlener”. Wikipedia. 2 May 2009.) This video can also be found at Irwin Redlener on Surviving a Nuclear Attack on TED.com.↩
  2. McConkie, Bruce R. “Stand Independent Above All Other Creatures”. April 1979. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 2 May 2009.↩
  3. “How to Survive a Nuclear Attack“. wikiHow. 2 May 2009.↩

« Older entries