Creativity and Liberty
OBJECTIVES
My life seems to have two objectives.
To inspire people towards Creativity and Liberty.
The kingly virtues
Because they're so important I feel that the ideas behind them get obscured too often.
Dethrone the kingly virtues like these by removing the meaning behind the symbols. And soon we're marching in the streets and waving flags just because we've always done it.
CREATIVITY
Creativity = phenomenon whereby a person creates something new (a product, a solution, a work of art etc.) that has some kind of value.
Creative solutions are what I admire most. But I think that all 3 aspects of creativity interelate and empower the mind and the person.
I think it is a capacity we can grow and I think that this capability that should be stressed more than ever.
Creativity can lead to a more capable life... capable of achievining and attaining more liberty.
LIBERTY
I think Liberty is one of the greatest of gifts that God has given us. It is known by many names. Freedom, Free Choice and Free Will to name a couple.
Often there are so many cliches attached to the concept and we are in danger of really grasping the importance in our hearts how necisary it is.
I believe that the first conflict among men was fought over the theme of Liberty and I believe we still must fight for it and I believe that in the future this will be the crux of the fight as well.
This is still God's world. The forces of evil, working through some mortals, have made a mess of a good part of it. But it is still God's world. In due time, when each of us has had a chance to prove ourselves--including whether or not we are going to stand up for freedom--God will interject himself, and the final and eternal victory shall be for free agency. And then shall those complacent people on the sidelines, and those who took the wrong but temporarily popular course, lament their decisions. To the patriots I say this: Take that long eternal look. Stand up for freedom, no matter what the cost. Stand up and be counted. It can help to save your soul--and maybe your country.
and
“Of course, the war in heaven over free agency is now being waged here on earth, and there are those today who are saying ‘Look, don't get involved in the fight for freedom. Just live the gospel.’ That counsel is dangerous, self-contradictory, unsound…Now, part of the reason we may not have sufficient priesthood bearers to save the Constitution let alone to shake the powers of hell, is because unlike Moroni, I fear, our souls do not joy in keeping our country free, and we are not firm in the faith of Christ nor have we sworn with an oath to defend our rights and the liberty of our country. Moroni raised a title of liberty and wrote upon it these words: ‘In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.’ Why didn't he write upon it: ‘Just live your religion; there's no need to concern yourselves about your freedom, your peace, your wives, or your children’? The reason he didn't do this was because all these things were a part of his religion, as they are of our religion today. Should we counsel people, ‘Just live your religion. There's no need to get involved in the fight for freedom’? No, we should not, because our stand for freedom is a most basic part of our religion; this stand helped get us to this earth, and our reaction to freedom in this life will have eternal consequences. Man has many duties, but he has no excuse that can compensate for his loss of liberty.”
- Ezra Taft Benson
I choose to lead a life centered on human liberty. Next to the atonement of Christ and his eternal plan for our salvation it is this agency, this free will, this liberty that I am most thankful for.
PRINCIPLES
I believe that true eternal principles are what are most powerful and most worthy of our time and effort.
The root principles that I try to see and implement in everything I do: Liberty, Love, Eternal Progression, Stewardship
Principles above politics, principles above party, principles above propaganda.
Choose good eternal principles in all situations ... "Do what is right, let the consequence follow"
What if…?
I have a few questions for my Friends.
- What if we wake up one day and realize that the terrorist threat is a predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others?
- What if propping up repressive regimes in the Middle East endangers both the United States and Israel?
- What if occupying countries like Iraq and Afghanistan - and bombing Pakistan - is directly related to the hatred directed toward us and has nothing to do with being free and prosperous?
- What if someday it dawns on us that losing over 5,000 American military personnel in the Middle East since 9/11 is not a fair trade-off for the loss of nearly 3,000 American citizens, no matter how many Iraqi, Pakistani, and Afghan people are killed or displaced?
- What if we finally decide that torture, even if called enhanced interrogation techniques, is self-destructive and produces no useful information - and that contracting it out to a third world nation is just as evil?
- What if it is finally realized that war and military spending is always destructive to the economy?
- What if all wartime spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil process of inflating and borrowing?
- What if we finally see that wartime conditions always undermine personal liberty?
- What if conservatives, who preach small government, wake up and realize that our interventionist foreign policy provides the greatest incentive to expand the government?
- What if conservatives understood once again that their only logical position is to reject military intervention and managing an empire throughout the world?
- What if the American people woke up and understood that the official reasons for going to war are almost always based on lies and promoted by war propaganda in order to serve special interests?
- What if we as a nation came to realize that the quest for empire eventually destroys all great nations?
- What if Obama has no intention of leaving Iraq?
- What if a military draft is being planned for the wars that will spread if our foreign policy is not changed?
- What if the American people learn the truth: that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security and that it never changes from one administration to the next?
- What if war and preparation for war is a racket serving the special interests?
- What if President Obama is completely wrong about Afghanistan and it turns out worse than Iraq and Vietnam put together?
- What if Christianity actually teaches peace and not preventive wars of aggression?
- What if diplomacy is found to be superior to bombs and bribes in protecting America?
- What happens if my concerns are completely unfounded - nothing!
- What happens if my concerns are justified and ignored - nothing good!
Adapted (and slightly reformatted) from a speech given on the floor of the house of representatives by the congressman from Texas Rep. Paul (I have changed the first line)
Questions that need to be asked, and so I shall repeat them here
Why Liberty? : Every Soul is Free
- Know this, that ev'ry soul is free To choose his life and what he'll be;
For this eternal truth is giv'n: That God will force no man to heav'n. - He'll call, persuade, direct aright, And bless with wisdom, love, and light,
In nameless ways be good and kind, But never force the human mind. - Freedom and reason make us men; Take these away, what are we then?
Mere animals, and just as well The beasts may think of heav'n or hell. - May we no more our pow'rs abuse, But ways of truth and goodness choose;
Our God is pleased when we improve His grace and seek his perfect love.
Know this, that every soul is free.
p.240 LDS hymnal
Will the American Republic continue forever?
Do you think the US Republic will never fail or keep on existing?
All other governments have failed will ours be different?
If not... what will be in history books as the cause of the fall?
What will be the thesis of "The rise and fall of the American Republic"
