Pride

Liberals have an established track record of latching on to slogans and key words and phrases, giving them new meanings and repeating it over and over that they ruin perfectly good words.

An example would be, well, 'liberal', which used to mean things like freedom from government and now means those who call for more oppressive socialistic government schemes, -- oh yeah, and 'freedom' to be any perversion known to man and use government to force 'tolerance' of such -- I would call this license (as in licentous) rather than liberal (as in liberty).

Here's an example I realized today -- the word Pride has been coopted by Liberals toward their agenda. E.g., in the Tribune's Things To Do This Week section (http://origin.sltrib.com/slc/ci_5234797) it lists

WINTERPRIDE PRE-CONFERENCE The theme is "Looking Beyond the Single-Issue Lens: Understanding the Intersection of Oppressions" from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Sheraton City Centre Hotel, 150 W. 500 South. Cost is $25. For information, visit www.utahpridecenter.org.

Now, it doesn't give any hint as to the actual topic -- yet we all know what it is.

However, let me add that I'm actually OK with them having the word "Pride". Given President Benson's wonderful talk on the subject I don't really care to associate myself with the word Pride, even in it's pre-liberal-corrupted meaning.

Which has made me really wonder, "What the heck?" when I see all the good Utahns (the moral bastion of freedom that the rest of the world will look to...?) so eager to put a bumper-sticker on their truck touting the "Power of PRIDE". Are they wishing to identify themselves as supporters of the crowd that is in the Sheraton Hotel right now learning to Understand the Intersection of Oppressions? Or, are they just generally spreading some mysterious new doctrine that it's actually good to derive power from Pride -- and flex that new-found Power against sovereign nations left and right, because while it's OK for US to have Pride, it's certainly not a good thing for them to. Or am I talking about nuclear weapons now? hm. My train of thought almost derailed...

So, to get back on track -- This all leads me to the following:
pride = unrighteous
power = dominion
thus: power of pride = dominion of unrighteous.

Who would voluntarily emblazon their mini-van with a big bold "Unrighteous Dominion"? Is that really something to BRAG about? Is that the message a "Power of Pride" bumper-sticker really sends?


Or is it worse? Do they really mean "Power of GLBT"?
-Joe

P.S. Given U.S. reliance on the power of pride, the proverb that "Pride cometh before the fall" can be a bit ominous....

Be involved in political process

We are involved in an intense battle. It is a battle between right and wrong, between truth and error, between the design of the Almighty on the one hand and that of Lucifer on the other. For that reason, we desperately need moral men and women who stand on principle, to be involved in the political process. Otherwise, we abdicate power to those whose designs are almost entirely selfish.

Gordon B. Hinckley, "Stand a little Taller,"pg. 15, July 2001

Mental Lying leads to Moral Mischief

"...It is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime."
-- Thomas Paine

This is in 'The Age of Reason', in which he clearly pronounces his disbelief in the religions of the day (based on the writings he would most probably have rejected the true church as well, when it came along). Yes, if just the phrase above were applied to every aspect of life, not just to one's beliefs on religion (and I believe Paine meant it in this way -- as a general principle, which he would then proceed to apply to a specific -- his beliefs on religion), how much better would the world be?
For example, it is mentally lying when some Mormons I know disassociate somehow their religious beliefs and their political beliefs, so that on the one hand they proclaim a belief in the gospel, including it's teaching on Christ vs. Satan and their respective proposed plans of Freedom vs. Coercion, and then on the other hand support all manner of socialist programs of every varying kind and degree. This, I believe is mental lying. Paine admits that others are not compelled to believe the same as he does on religion -- but that he and they should all be mentally honest. And he finds, as I do with him, that most are NOT mentally honest; rather, most are such mental liars, that it opens the way for Satan and his minions to practics all manner of deceit upon them with little effort. Once you compromise the principle of mental honesty, it opens the way for, as Paine writes, "the commission of every other crime."

No Compromise of Principles

"A principle cannot be compromised but only adhered to or surrendered. Honesty is abandoned as much by the theft of a dime as of a dollar".

-- Leonard E. Read

Credit no bargain

"He that sells upon credit asks a price for what he sells equivalent to the principal and interest of his money for the time he is likely to be kept out it; therefore he that buys upon credit pays interest for what he buys. And he that pays ready money might let that money out to use; so that he that possesses anything he has bought pays interest for the use of it."

-Benjamin Franklin

Confidence in our rulers??

"It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights... Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power... Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.

"I sincerely wish... we could see our government so secured as to depend less on the character of the person in whose hands it is trusted. Bad men will sometimes get in and with such an immense patronage may make great progress in corrupting the public mind and principles. This is a subject with which wisdom and patriotism should be occupied." --Thomas Jefferson to Moses Robinson, 1801. ME 10:237

Freedom and Virtue

"Freedom is, in truth, a sacred thing. There is only one thing else that better deserves the name: virtue. But then what is virtue if not the free choice of what is good?"
-Alexis de Tocqueville

Wow. That is a powerful statement. Indeed, where is the virtue in doing good because one is compelled? To the contrary, freely choosing to do good when allowed such choice and not being compelled, is the pinnacle of virtuosity.

Again, the critical distinction of the primary issue in the Universe -- God's Plan vs. Satan -- is one of being allowed free choice to do good, or being compelled to be good. I believe God's plan that we be allowed to freely choose good and be truly virtuous is preferrable to Satan's plan that we all be mere obedient cogs in the machinery of his attempt at a shortcut to Godhood, even to displace God.

Energetic Government

"I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive."

- Thomas Jefferson