My Life Outside of Photography Thoughts and findings that don't always relate to Photography

As for me and my house… we shall always choose freedom.

A couple of definitions to start us off thinking a bit about socialism:

so⋅cial⋅ism /ˈsoʊʃəˌlɪzəm/
–noun

Dictionary.com (ala random house)

1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

(ala American Heritage dictionary)

Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

Wikipedia -

Socialism: refers to any one of various theories of economic organization advocating state, public or common worker ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a more egalitarian method of compensation.

A couple of YouTube Clips (sorry only had time to find a couple)

An LDS leader and former secretary of agriculture (back when that was a big thing)

Ezra Taft Benson Talk at BYU at 1966 referring to Socialism and Communism

Another great talk and A more in depth description and history of Church thoughts (members of the church) on Socialism And other historical teachings

What I've gathered from his points

From listening to him and others talking against socialism (nationalistic or democratic) is that it's about FREEDOM

Socialist view

It seems amongst those that advocate socialism they point to trends in improvements of lifestyle.
We have better health care, we have less bums, we have better food
(upon which claims, others insist the jury is still out... and then state, yes but even so... At what cost?)

So what wins out in the end? Loss of freedom to raise the quality of life or increase of freedom allowing for some to perhaps not have that raise in life.

I know it's not as cut and dry as that. There are other things to consider.

But doesn't it bare stark similarities to a plan proposed by one saying "none shall be lost"

My Thoughts

As for me and my house... we shall always choose freedom.

Freedom to accomplish or freedom to fail.
And taking that one step further we will do our part to encourage and even put our our hand and lift the other to make it to the finish line.

Of course we could bicker on every aspect of socialism and freedom on every subject from 3rd world humanitarian aid, to public schools, to taxation, to farm subsidies.
But I think it's important we pick an ideological ground.
A truth to stand true on, what is the right? Is it lifting everyone up no matter what, not leaving it up to choice... or is it something else? Is it right to stand on the ideal of freedom? If so what does it mean?

It's about this time we wish we had the words of prophets and even ancient prophets to help us understand, because things can get so muddled sometimes amongst the bickering.
Well they're there and the truths of god upon which we can extrapolate are there too...
I say we can attain these truths just from a really great exercise of logic.

I guess we could use our compass mark as the constitution but we appear pretty far detached from that and people have messed around with it so much.

Anything that stiffles freedom is a step in the wrong direction to me...

As for me and my house... we shall always choose freedom.