Socialism

[Steve]

Yes. We need not resort to measures that run contrary to the Lord's revelations. The repeated statements made by prophets to all the world in General Conference (and please notice I did not just say to all Church members) are hardly "political opinions." You know this. Therefore, their statements I do indeed take to be God's will for everybody. I do not believe you willfully disobeyed. I think part of it may have been ignorance. As I shared previously, it's entirely your decision, though. Only the Lord can judge your heart. I can merely observe your words and actions and offer the words of the Lord for your consideration. You will do with them what you will. Fight against them as much as you like. Rationalize and justify if you think you can. Someday, you will grow tired of kicking against the pricks and I think you will be surprised with how refreshing and peaceful it is to simply give heed to the prophets (and their Master).

So no, the things you said are not the implications of what I am saying. They are the unfortunate misunderstanding of someone who has been cornered and is trying to fight their way out. I will leave you to it with no further comment if it will keep you from saying something you'll later regret and/or recognize is wrong, but feel it's too late to retract it.

[Betsy]

I have been working very hard to say nothing here that I will regret later. And believe it or not, I do know that they are just political opinions. This knowledge is actually what brings me peace in life. What would be regrettable is if I said that every single thing a prophet says is true, because that would get me into a lot of trouble. Much of what they say is true though. So that is why I choose to follow and sustain them.

No, I did not make that decision out of "ignorance". We knew about how some prophets had socialist paranoia when we made the decision to accept medicaid. So based on your definition we did willfully disobey. Except...we didn't.

No, someday I will not get tired of "kicking against the pricks". And no, I will ever be surprised by how "refreshing and peaceful" it is to take every word a prophet says literally. I plan never to do this. I plan to follow the prophets with guidance by the holy ghost. I will be doing as I am striving to do now, to maintain a healthy balance. This is true happiness.

These are all truths I hold dear and let it be known and said on this forum for the records of time henceforth and forever amen.

[Ann]

I intended to respond to some of James' posts and never took the time to do so. I am sorry to hear about the experience that your family had with your sister's health crisis. It sounds like that was very difficult and no doubt shaped the way you view healthcare. Yes, healthcare costs are exorbitant and there are problems on so many levels. Navigating insurance issues, payment, not to mention dealing with new diagnoses, testing, and medications is overwhelming for many, many people. However, we also have many people in our nation that expect perfect healthcare immediately and are frustrated when they have to pay for it. Healthcare in socialist countries is not necessarily better. It is true that some of the endpoint measurements are better, but there are many other problems with these systems.

Regarding education, I don't agree with making it all free. It seems to be a natural tendency to value and work harder at/for something that we purchase. I am grateful for the help I received in obtaining my education, but am also grateful for the work experiences I had while trying to balance my studies and other endeavors. Why should someone else pay my student loans? However, it does appear that the cost of higher education is becoming exorbitant and measures are needed to cut down on cost so it is more affordable and the amount of student loans is more manageable.

If we do not expect to pay for healthcare and education, why would we not make the more fundamental needs free (free housing, food, clothing) for everyone? At what point are we responsible to provide for what we use?

I am curious as to why it seems so important to take down the billionaire class. I don't have a problem with people who make loads of money in honest ways. I do have an issue when money is obtained and utilized in dishonest ways, but this is not limited to the billionaire class.

This may be a little off the topic of socialism, but I think somewhere around the first page, James said that environmental issues were of top importance to him. I would like to know why that supercedes other issues for you. I try to be environmentally responsible - I recycle, try to avoid wasting water, eat meat sparingly, reuse what I can, etc, etc. In short, I try to be a good steward of the earth that was given for our use. For me, though, other issues seem more pressing.

Ian posted a list of countries that failed socialism. True, he didn't include the source (would you share your source(s)?), but neither did anyone else give information that proved his information wrong. For those who are in favor of socialism, what examples and historical background can you give that socialist governments/societies succeed and endure?

[Betsy]

Ann, I don't know if I ever made a point to prove Ian's list wrong, I just commented on it's lack of a source. These countries may have been socialist, but our country currently is not fully socialist. It is somewhat though... which apparently makes some people's skin crawl.

Also "success of a country" is a difficult thing to define. What makes a country successful? Prosperity? lower rates of depression? high literacy rates? It it means all the people in it are perfect, that's certainly never going to happen. (thanks captain obvious)

[James]

Ann,
I can't remember a time when I was not concerned about the environment. surely there are other very important issues. I feel that environmental damage is difficult to reverse. Once the rain forest is gone it won't just grow back next year.
I share your experience with wondering, if this then why not that, and that? Specifically I thought about food, remembering the pope holding the many varieties of Oreo cookies. As for education, In my view, perhaps making university administration positions adjunct, and all professors full time is higher on the priority list than asking Wall Street to help fund education. Dealing with the rising cost of education (yes, it is much more than it was in the 70s) should be considered from many angles.
you asked about socialist societies. For now i will mention two ideas that are socialist-like. The first is that universal health care systems generally work well and the claims against them have been debunked. the NHS has been around since Second World War.
My second example of interest is found a few posts up in this thread (the link to an article on subsidized housing). It's the one Ian responded to by posting a picture of grandpa Simpson, a cenile old man from the Simpsons, "old man yells at cloud" (that's me)

[Ian]

no, to be fair, the old man is bernie sanders.

[James]

[img]bernie/img]

[John]

In an editorial published in The Oklahoman last month, University of Oklahoma Associate Professor David Deming claims “the candidacy of Bernie Sanders is a symptom of our failure to educate [the youth], not only in history, government and economics, but also basic morality.”
“You don’t have to be a student of ancient history to know socialism doesn’t work,” Professor Deming states, highlighting the capitulation of the Soviet Union and Venezuela’s current problems as examples of how the Socialist economic system dooms nations to fail.

“The misery caused by socialism is unfolding today in Venezuela. Since Venezuela embraced socialism in 1999, poverty, crime and corruption have all increased. Grocery shelves are empty and the annual inflation rate is estimated to be as high as 200 percent.”
Deming notes the U.S. was allowed to thrive because its Founding Fathers upheld private property rights, and credits the free-market capitalist economic system for producing “the greatest prosperity in human history.”
“If we believe a transaction is in our best interest, we have an incentive to maintain good relations with those with whom we’re trading. Thus a society based on freedom and trading promotes good will and civility.”
Under socialism on the other hand, Deming claims, “there are no property rights.”
“Everything you possess is subject to confiscation and redistribution,” he writes. “Industrious and productive people are punished; parasites are rewarded.”
Deming goes on to argue the solution lies in limiting government power and the checks and balances placed on the various branches by the Constitution.
“Human nature is corruptible,” stresses Deming. “If government has the power to redistribute wealth, it will always act in the interests of the powerful segments of society.”
“What made America great is not progressive government, but the genius and industry of a people freed from arbitrary power by the chains placed upon government by our Constitution.”
“If we want to retain our freedom and prosperity,” Prof. Deming says, “then we must educate our children that the purpose of government is to secure liberty, not provide free lunches.”

[Steve]

Some of the most prominent targets now under withering fire in this war against us are the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, the Constitution of the United States, the institution of private property, and the basic concepts of the gospel of Jesus Christ. ...

Today we face insidious, devastating evils that are widespread. Aimed especially at the destruction of America—the last great bastion of freedom—with emphasis on our youth, the evils are everywhere, sponsored, promoted, and directed by the Communist conspiracy, fellow travelers, and dupes. Never has evil been presented in such an array of appealing forms. We face a most dangerous revolution in America, and it is now in progress. ...

These evils are prominent in the promotion of drugs—LSD, marijuana, and a host of others—in leading magazines and underground publications for youth; in TV, movie, and radio programs, in pornographic literature, in morally destructive paperback books available to all on newsstands, and in Communist-oriented anti-American organizations, such as SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). ...

Yes, godless forces do threaten our great civilization. These godless forces are forging a union of state and atheism. I quote in substance from the well-known constitutional lawyer, Dean Clarence E. Manion (see Manion Forum Broadcast 747, January 26, 1969): ...

The miracle for St. Matthew's men was the unerring accuracy of the Star of Bethlehem, which guided them to their divine destination. The wonder of the world for 1968 was the apparent common faith, wisdom, humility, and, last but not least, the moral courage of Colonel Borman, Captain Lovell, and Major Anders, who, on Christmas Day, at the apex of history's then longest and most perilous voyage, gave praise and thanks to God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and implored his blessing upon all of the three billion listening people of this world.

When all of the facts, figures, and findings of the first incredible journey to the moon are finally evaluated and computerized, this unscheduled, unprecedented public act of religious faith and worship will be found, like the name of Abou Ben Adhem, to lead all the rest for all the years to come. Without the blessings of the Lord, all this would be quite impossible.

Those professed atheists, who have confidently relied upon science to dethrone and eclipse Almighty God, are already doing their manful best, of course, to rub out all reference to the prayer in their recapitulation and evaluation of Apollo 8. The monitoring Communists in Moscow decided wisely to ignore it. But some others are unable to restrain their indignation and have probably been back to the United States Supreme Court seeking the same kind of prohibition against the public glorification of God in the heavens that they have so successfully maintained here on earth.

The justices may or may not welcome this new opportunity to reenforce their strange new doctrine of neutrality in the weird war that is being fronted against God and religion. Undoubtedly, the Court's ultimate decision will be influenced by what happens to the attitude of the American people in the meantime. For the real question now is this: How much longer will the American people—the whole Christian world—continue to tolerate the sadistic beating that religion has been taking in this country and elsewhere for the past 25 years?

Frankly recognizing that godless forces in this country have always been overwhelmingly outnumbered by the faithful, the first working principle of the anti-God strategists has been to move insidiously and always carefully to avoid anything that resembles a direct attack or a frontal confrontation with their opponents.

So in launching their campaign against God, the attackers proceeded first to ignore him in the secular press; second, to humanize him in the churches; third, to clobber him with ridicule on the campus; and, finally, to induce the courts to enforce official governmental neutrality in all litigated controversies about God and religion.

From a practical standpoint, of course, these decisions establish a union of state and atheism. The accomplishment of this last objective has taken prayer out of the public schools; and if and when the judicial conclusion is extended to its logical limits, it will abolish tax exemption for church property, eliminate chaplains from the armed services, remove our motto "In God we trust from our coins, and require major surgery upon our official salute to the flag.

We must realize that the anti-prayer decisions are simply a beguiling climax in the wide-ranging campaign against God and religion that has been sustained here in this country, and in many other nations, for more than three decades.

(Elder Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, October 1969)

[Steve]

The Constitution provides that the great bulk of the legitimate activities of government are to be carried out at the state or local level. This is the only way in which the principle of self-government can be made effective.

The smallest or lowest level that can possibly undertake the task is the one that should do so. The smaller the governmental unit and the closer it is to the people, the easier it is to guide it, to correct it, to keep it solvent, and to keep our freedom.

Remember that the people of the states of this republic created the federal government. The federal government did not create the states.

A category of government activity that not only requires the closest scrutiny but that also poses a grave danger to our continued freedom is the activity not within the proper sphere of government. No one has the authority to grant such powers as welfare programs, schemes for redistributing the wealth, and activities that coerce people into acting in accordance with a prescribed code of social planning. There is one simple test. Do I as an individual have a right to use force upon my neighbor to accomplish this goal? If I do, then I may delegate that power to my government to exercise it in my behalf. If I do not have that right, I cannot delegate it. ...

Once government steps over this clear line between the protective or negative role into the aggressive role of redistributing the wealth through taxation and providing so-called "benefits" for some of its citizens, it becomes a means for legalized plunder. It becomes a lever of unlimited power that is the sought-after prize of unscrupulous individuals and pressure groups, each seeking to control the machine to fatten his own pockets or to benefit his favorite charity, all with the other fellow's money, of course. Each class or special interest group competes with the others to throw the lever of governmental power in its favor, or at least to immunize itself against the effects of a previous thrust. Labor gets a minimum wage. Agriculture gets a price support. Some consumers demand price controls. In the end, no one is much further ahead, and everyone suffers the burdens of a gigantic bureaucracy and a loss of personal freedom. With each group out to get its share of the spoils, such governments historically have mushroomed into total welfare states. Once the process begins, once the principle of the protective function of government gives way to the aggressive or redistributive function, then forces are set in motion that drive the nation toward totalitarianism.

No government in the history of mankind has ever created any wealth. People who work create wealth.

The free creative energy of this choice nation "created more than 50 percent of all the world's products and possessions in the short span of 160 years. The only imperfection in the system is the imperfection in man himself." (James R. Evans, The Glorious Quest [Chicago: Charles Hallberg and Company].)

According to Marxist doctrine, a human being is primarily an economic creature. His material well-being is all important; his privacy and his freedom are secondary. The Soviet constitution reflects this philosophy in its emphasis on security: food, clothing, housing, medical care—the same things that might be considered in a jail. The basic concept is that the government has full responsibility for the welfare of the people and, in order to discharge that responsibility, must assume control of all their activities. It is significant that in actuality the Russian people have few of the rights supposedly "guaranteed" to them in their constitution, while the American people have them in abundance even though they are not guaranteed. The reason is that material gain and economic prosperity and security simply cannot be guaranteed by any government They are the result and reward of hard work and industrious production. Unless the people bake one loaf of bread for each citizen, the government cannot guarantee tht each will have one loaf to eat. Constitutions can be written, laws can be passed, and imperial decrees can be issued, but unless the bread is produced, it can never be distributed.

Why, then, do Americans bake more bread, manufacture more shoes, and assemble more TV sets than Russians do? They do so precisely because our government does not guarantee these things. If it did, there would be so many accompanying taxes, controls, regulations, and political manipulations that the productive genius that is America's would soon be reduced to the floundering level of waste and inefficiency now found behind the Iron Curtain.

Any attempt through governmental intervention to redistribute the material rewards of labor can only result in the eventual destruction of the productive base of society, without which real abundance and security for more than the ruling elite is quite impossible.

What happens to a nation that ignores these basic principles? Former FBI agent Dan Smoot succinctly points this out:

"England was killed by an idea; the idea that the weak, indolent, and profligate must be supported by the strong, industrious, and frugal—to the degree that tax consumers will have a living standard comparable to that of taxpayers; the idea that government exists for the purpose of plundering those who work to give the product of their labor to those who do not work.

"The economic and social cannibalism produced by this communist-socialist idea will destroy any society which adopts it and clings to it as a basic principle—any society."

This may sound heartless and insensitive to the needs of those less fortunate individuals who are found in any society, no matter how affluent. "What about the lame, the sick and the destitute?" is an often-voiced question. Most other countries have attempted to use the power of government to meet this need. Yet, in every case, the improvement has been marginal at best and has, in the long run, created more misery, more poverty, and certainly less freedom than when government first stepped in.

As Henry Grady Weaver wrote:

"Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own. . . . The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional `do-gooders,' who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others—with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means." (The Mainspring of Human Progress.)

America has traditionally followed Jefferson's advice of relying on the profit motive, individual action, and charity. The United States has fewer cases of genuine hardship per capita than any other country in the world now or throughout all history. Even during the depression of the 1930's, Americans ate and lived better than most people in other countries do today.

History proves that the growth of the welfare state is difficult to check before it comes to its full flower of dictatorship. But let us hope that this time around, the trend can be reversed. If not, then we will see the inevitability of complete socialism—probably within our lifetime.

Three factors may make a difference: (1) sufficient historical knowledge of the failures of socialism in contrast to the proven success of free enterprise; (2) modern means of rapid communications to transmit this information to a large literate population; (3) a growing number of dedicated men and women actively working to promote a wider appreciation of these basic concepts. The timely joining together of these three factors may make it entirely possible for us to reverse the trend.

How is it possible to cut out the various welfare-state features of our government that have already fastened themselves like cancer cells onto the body politic? Can drastic surgery be performed without endangering the patient? Drastic measures are called for. No compromise actions will suffice. Like all surgery, it will not be without discomfort and perhaps even some scar tissue for a long time to come. But it must be done if the patient is to be saved—and it can be done without undue risk.

Not all welfare-state programs currently in force can be dropped simultaneously without causing tremendous economic and social upheaval. The first step toward restoring the limited concept of government should be to freeze all welfare-state programs at their present levels, making sure that no new ones are added. The next step would be to allow all present programs to run out their term with absolutely no renewal. The third step would involve the gradual phasing-out of those programs which are indefinite in their term. The bulk of the transition could be accomplished, I believe, within a ten-year period and virtually completed within 20 years.

We must return to basic concepts and principles, to eternal verities in this choice land. There is no other way. The storm signals are up. They are clear and ominous.

We are building up a generation of lazy, government-dole-consuming weaklings. If this Communist-planned program of deception is not stopped, it will destroy our nation.

As Americans—citizens of the greatest nation under heaven—we face difficult days. Never since the days of the Civil War—100 years ago—has this choice nation faced such a crisis.

I have faith in the American people. I pray that we will refrain from doing anything further that will jeopardize in any manner, our priceless heritage. This is a choice land. If we live and work so as to enjoy the approbation of a Divine Providence, we cannot fail. Without that help, we cannot long endure.

As Americans, let us put our courage to the test—to be firm in the conviction that our cause is just, to reaffirm our faith in all things for which true Americans have always stood in years past.

Let all Americans arouse themselves and stay aroused. We must stop and then reverse the concessions we have made to socialistic Communism at home and abroad. We should oppose these evil forces from our position of strength, for we are not weak.

There is much work to be done. The time is short. Let us begin in earnest—now—and may God bless our efforts, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

(Elder Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, October 1968)

I love President Benson. The Lord's position on socialism is crystal clear.

[Steve]

We should not support the world's greatest evil, the Godless, Socialist-Communist conspiracy that seeks to destroy all we hold dear as a great Christian nation and to promote insidiously the breakdown of law and order and the erosion of our morality.

(Elder Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, April 1968)

[Steve]

In his conference address of April 1938, President Clark said this: ...

Society owes to no man a life of idleness, no matter what his age. I have never seen one line in Holy Writ that calls for, or even sanctions this. In the past no free society has been able to support great groups in idleness and live free.” (CR, Apr. 1938, pp. 106–7.)

And I’ll say to you that no society in the future will ever be able to do so.

And in a private letter five years later, President Clark wrote:

“You must remember that back and behind this whole propaganda of ‘pensions’, gratuities, and doles to which we are now being subjected, is the idea of setting up in America, a socialistic or communistic state, in which the family would disappear, religion would be prescribed and controlled by the state, and we should all become mere creatures of the state, ruled over by ambitious and designing men.”

What has happened during the third of a century since this statement was made testifies to President Clark’s prophetic insight.

Prayer in schools has been dealt a fatal blow. The integrity of the family is being undermined. Unemployment compensation, Medicaid, aid to families with dependent children (AFDC), food stamps, and hundreds of other transfer-payment programs for veterans, widows or widowers, and children are today all supported, totally or in part, by federal and state/local tax revenue.

Little is said or done in these programs about the obligation of parents to care for their own or of recipients to work for what they receive.

The Lord, in the revelations given during the Restoration, and the presidents of the Church since then, have unequivocally and repeatedly declared that our welfare services are to be founded on love and on work. ...

President Grant declared:

“I am a firm believer that work does not kill anyone. …

“I have never seen the day when I was not willing to do the meanest work … rather than be idle. …

“Men should have a pride in doing their full share and never want to be paid for that which they have not earned. …

“I assert with confidence that the law of success, here and hereafter, is to have a humble and a prayerful heart, and to work, work, WORK. …

“I do not ask any man or child in this Church, although I am more than eighty years of age,” he continued, “to work any more hours than I do. I have worked more than one day from half past three in the morning until nine o’clock at night. I do not know of anything that destroys a person’s health more quickly than not working. It seems to me that lazy people die young while those who are ready and willing to labor and who ask the Lord day by day to help them to do more in the future than they have ever done in the past, are the people whom the Lord loves, and who live to a good old age. …

“I have been impressed with the fact that there is a spirit growing in the world today to avoid giving service, an unwillingness to give value received, to try to see how little we can do and how much we can get for doing it. This is all wrong. Our spirit and aim should be to do all we possibly can, in a given length of time, for the benefit of those who employ us and for the benefit of those with whom we are associated.

“The other spirit—to get all we can, and give as little as possible in return—is contrary to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not right to desire something for which we do not give service or value received. That idea is all wrong, and it is only a question of time when the sheep and the goats will be separated.” (Gospel Standards, Improvement Era Pub., 1941, pp. 108, 109, 182–84.)

A statement which focuses upon and gives real meaning to what we have been talking about here is the following “Editorial on Labor,” written and published by John Taylor in Nauvoo, October 15, 1844. I just found this recently, and I think it’s a marvelous statement. This was way back there just after the Prophet had been martyred. It reads:

“Labor is the manufacturer of wealth. It was ordained of God, as the medium to be used by man to obtain his living [italics added]: hence it is the universal condition of this great bond to live. …

“God never meant to bemean his creation, especially his own image, because they had to labor:—no; never; God himself according to the good old book labored on this world, six days; and when Adam was animated from clay to life, by his spirit’s making use of him for a dwelling, we read that God put him into the garden to dress it:—Therefore, in connection with the samples of all holy men, we are bound to honor the laboring man: and despise the idler. …

“Let them labor like men, prepare for that august hour; when Babylon and all her worldly wisdom; her various delicacies; and delusive fashions, shall fall with her to rise and trouble the earth no more!” Then he said, “What a glorious prospect, to think that drunken Babylon, the great city of sin, will soon cease, and the kingdom of God rise in holy splendor, upon her ashes, and the people serve God in a perpetual union!” (Times and Seasons 5:679, Oct. 15, 1844.)

Now, my brothers and sisters, the handwriting is on the wall; “the interpretation thereof [is] sure.” (Dan. 2:45.) Both history and prophecy—and I may add, common sense—bear witness to the fact that no civilization can long endure which follows the course charted by bemused manipulators and now being implemented as government welfare programs all around the world.

Babylon shall be destroyed, and great shall be the fall thereof. (See D&C 1:16.)

(Elder Marion G. Romney, General Conference, April 1976) ↗

[Steve]

Now, what remedy have I to suggest for this condition of confusion that exists in the world—for it is not only in Mexico; there is war in northern Africa ; there is war in China; hundreds of thousands of men are engaged in almost a life and death struggle in England. ... There is just one remedy for this condition, in my opinion. These people are religious people. You may say that to convert them to Christianity will cure all of these evils. There is no people professing greater Christianity than the German people, or the English people. There are no people in the world who are more devotedly attached to the Christian religion, so-called, than these people down in Mexico. But it does not prevent war. It does not prevent confusion ; it does not adjust those great religious and industrial problems which are before the world and which must be solved. We can not brush them aside ; they are here ; they are here demanding solution. The people in their ignorance and in their darkness are seeking to solve them by means which must inevitably fail. Socialism cannot do it ; anarchy cannot do it ; resort to force cannot do it. Just one thing, and that is repentance on the part of the people who make up the inhabitants of this earth; faith in the Lord Jesus Christ ; conversion to these righteous principles which He taught, by which the rich are lead to respect the rights of the poor, and the poor to respect the rights of the rich, those doctrines which make us one in that universal brotherhood which would come to us were the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ accepted by the people of the world; and to teach this is our mission. ...

I do not believe that it can ever be accomplished, I do not look for peace, I do not look for harmony, I do not expect that men will sheath their swords and live in love together, that the millennium, the thousand years of peace, will be established until the people of the world are converted to the truths of the everlasting Gospel of our Redeemer. The mission to so convert them rests with the Latter-day Saints, and we are discharging that responsibility as well as we can, under the circumstances by which we are surrounded. ...

May we never forget that song which was sung at Bethlehem of Judea, when Christ was bom into the world, the song sung by the angels of God : "Peace on earth, good will to men." I trust that the Latterday Saints may be among the foremost in maintaining it, standing for law, standing for order, conservative, careful, trusting in the Lord.

(Elder Anthony W. Ivins, Conference Report, April 1912) ↗

[Steve]

Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the People' tell the government what it is allowed to do. 'We the People' are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do these past 8 years.

But back in the 1960's, when I began, it seemed to me that we'd begun reversing the order of things -- that through more and more rules and regulations and confiscatory taxes, the government was taking more of our money, more of our options, and more of our freedom. I went into politics in part to put up my hand and say, 'Stop.' I was a citizen politician, and it seemed the right thing for a citizen to do.

I think we have stopped a lot of what needed stopping. And I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.

(Ronald Reagan, Reagan's Farewell Speech, 1988) ↗

[Ian]

"How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin." -- Ronald Reagan