"Social Justice" and Freedom

The cry for freedom, less government, leeriness of programs to help us all out is ringing louder and louder with each passing day.  Yet, the pleas on the side of the "left" can't help but to garnish some empathy and understanding.  Who is right?  How do we as a nation, state, community move forward with truth?

I have come to believe that the major mistake the good intentioned, pure in heart liberals make is the level on which they want to to establish their principles.  As human beings we should absolutely work toward a fair society for all, where everyone can reach their fullest potential and should not have to live with the continual inequity of basic needs.  Teachers should be well-respected and adequately compensated.  Monolithic companies should not own all of the means of production only to enslave those who fall prey to needing their services, products or employment. 

But, all this "social justice" has to be administered on a local level.  In fact, it's not really administered, it is brought about by all because of the love and concern we should each have for our fellow man.  Imagine the poorest neighborhoods in America saying, "we are going to rise up and change this."  But instead of demanding that the federal government take from others to just give to them, they ask some different questions:  how can our neighborhood by productive,  what do our neighbors need that they would pay us for, how can we empower our families to be strong and teach morality to their children, how can we encourage mothers and fathers to get married, and stay married,  how can we clean up our own streets, how can we fix up our houses, how can we become the capable self-respecting people that we were meant to be, how can we be an asset to one another, to our state, to our nation?  These are the only types of questions that will bring our nation out of its crisis.

Looking to federal government to continue to pilfer money from those who produce and give to those who have lost their initiative will only bring us to complete financial ruin.  Allowing the federal government to continue down the path of more and more regulation ONLY serves to steal freedom and choice from its people.  The drafters of the constitution new this, and wrote the constitution accordingly, severely restricting what the federal government was actually allowed to do. 

Communities, neighborhoods, states, rise up and be productive.  Find the best that is in you, and go to work.

J. Reuben Clark


It does seem to me that we parents have not only lost all control as to what out own flesh and blood - I use that term instead of children because I should like to make the ugly fact as poignant as possible - I say we have lost all control as to what our own are taught... and also we are not even consulted about these matters. Now as a matter of principle, surely we who pay the costs and furnish the students might with propriety have some voice in what they whom we pay shall teach those students... I am willing that every man shall believe what he wishes, print what he wishes, and say what he wishes within his Constitutional rights, but I am not willing that he shall exploit all his idiosyncrasies in teaching my flesh and blood while I pay the bill! I insist that he shall have all the personal freedom he can carry, but I am not willing to extend that full and complete freedom into a gross license and then pay him to abuse that license to distort and debase the minds and hearts and bodies of those who belong to me and are dearer to me than life itself. (Prophets, Principles and National Survival, p. 188.)