LDS Liberty; Justifying Anti-Government Practices?

 An interesting anti-government scheme is suggested by members of the LDS Liberty group.  Since their libertarian roots are supposedly offended by any form of socialism, some of them show their belief by refusing to obtain a social security number, which some of them refer to contemptuously as a "Socialist Security Number".  They soon discover that they supposedly need not file a US tax return without one, which has the effect of saving lots of money, and they cannot register for the draft, which they don't support anyway.  Here are some members of the group discussing the virtues of being an anti-government activist.

Rock Waterman says:

May 12, 2012 at 9:09 pm

It is not widely known that a person who does not have a social security number cannot be called up for the draft, just as they cannot be compelled to pay the federal income tax.
Your social security number is the means by which the government lays claim to your future earnings and your service to pay the obligations of the federal government, including your duty to act as cannon fodder if needed. When FDR effectively moved the United States into bankruptcy in 1933, he pledged the future earnings of the people as collateral on the debt. We were all tricked into obtaining social security numbers, believing it was mandatory to hold a job. It is not. But it is the nexus by which the government claims ownership of the people living within the states. It takes you out of the protection of the state and makes you a U.S. Citizen.
Of course, today it is extremely difficult to function without a social security number, but some manage. The rest of us are in pretty deep, I’m afraid. We’ve sold ourselves to the devil.

Reply

• Christopher Hansen says:

  July 23, 2012 at 2:09 am

  You are correct. “We’ve sold ourselves to the devil.”
  You cannot be a faithful LDS and be a Socialist. The Prophets have said so since the 30s.
  If you want to send the 666 SSN back to them you need to use the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
  I have not filed a 1040 Return in over 34 years. I have letters from the IRS that I am not required to file a 1040. I know I am exempt and my lawyer tells me I am exempt. My children do not have SSNs. I sent the number that they assigned to me back long ago. Remember…SSN belong to the government. They are NEVER YOUR number. Read the instruction card if you don’t believe me. They OWN it…Not you.
  The Church supported the RFRA. Elder Oaks spoke to Congress telling them that the Church supported it. God allows those that seek liberty to find it but only if you REALLY want liberty enough to do anything to get it except be immoral or violent. No need for that God provides the way.
  With 31 USC Section 5112(e) and the RFRA every Latter-day Saint that wants to be free from the IRS and Social Security and other Federal entanglements can be free. But you have to WANT to be free and WORK to be free. Freedom is not free.
  Any man or woman that is not willing to risk what the Founding Fathers risked are not really worthy of liberty nor celestial glory IMHO.
  Mormons need not apply. Only Christian Latter-day Saints. (See 3rd Nephi Chapter 27)
  “Next to being one in worshiping God, there is nothing in this world in which this Church should be more united than in upholding and defending the Constitution of the Unite States. If members of the Melchizedek Priesthood allow the U.S. Constitution to be destroyed, they not only forfeit their rights to the Priesthood, but to a place in this highest degree of glory as well.”
  (David O. McKay, The Instructor, Feb. 1956, p.34)
  Why be LDS and a Socialist with their card? You cannot serve two masters. Either liberate yourself or EXPECT to lose your priesthood.

  Reply

Christopher Hansen says:

July 23, 2012 at 1:56 am

Over ten years ago my sons became ALMOST eligible for the draft. I called the Draft Board or whatever they are called and told them that my sons were old enough to register but that they did not have Social Security Numbers and asked if my sons could register without them.
The nice guy told me how to get them Social Security Numbers.
I informed him that I had religious objections to such numbers and so did my sons and that they would NOT be applying for Social Security Numbers.
I was told that my sons COULD NOT register for the draft without Social Security Numbers. Naturally they never registered.
Did you know that without a Social Security Number that you cannot file a 1040 Tax Return either?
The Income tax is “voluntary” because you have to volunteer just like you have to volunteer to be drafted. The prophets and apostles have repeatedly told us to eschew Socialism. A Social Security Number is how you become a Socialist.

To him that has eye to read let him understand.

Reply

A few words of counsel from one of the Lord's anointed addresses the issues raised here.

 Dallin H. Oaks, Our Strengths can Become Our Weakness

 First, Elder Oaks refers to "one note hobbies":

 ...My first example concerns Satan's efforts to corrupt a person who has an unusual commitment to one particular doctrine or commandment of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This could be an unusual talent for family history work, an extraordinary commitment to constitutional government, a special gift in the acquisition of knowledge, or any other special talent or commitment.

In a memorable message given at the 1971 October conference, Elder Boyd K. Packer likened the fulness of the gospel to a piano keyboard. He reminded us that a person could be "attracted by a single key," such as a doctrine they want to hear "played over and over again." He explained:
Some members of the Church who should know better pick out a hobby key or two and tap them incessantly, to the irritation of those around them. They can dull their own spiritual sensitivities. They lose track that there is a fulness of the gospel, . . . [which they reject] in preference to a favorite note. This becomes exaggerated and distorted, leading them away into apostasy. [Boyd K. Packer, Teach Ye Diligently (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1975), p. 44] 

Next, he cites the example of one who favors certain isolated words from selected prophetic counsel:

 ...A related distortion is seen in the practice of those who select a few sentences from the teachings of a prophet and use these to support their political agenda or other personal purposes. In doing so, they typically ignore the contrary implications of other prophetic words, or even the clear example of the prophet's own actions. For example, I have corresponded with several Church members who sought to use something President Benson is quoted as saying as a basis for refusing to file an income-tax return or to pay income taxes. I have tried to persuade these persons that their interpretation cannot be what President Benson intended, because both he and his predecessors in that sacred office, and all of the General Authorities, have faithfully filed their income-tax returns and paid the taxes required by law. The servants of God are under the Master's commands to follow him and to be examples to the flock (1 Timothy 4:12; 1 Peter 5:3). We should interpret their words in the light of their walk. To wrest the words of a prophet to support a private agenda, political or financial or otherwise, is to try to manipulate the prophet, not to follow him.

Lastly, he warns against those who takes too much pride in a particular individual strong point.  Note that he makes specific reference to spiritual gifts:

 ...A person who engages in self-congratulation over a supposed strength has lost the protection of humility and is vulnerable to Satan's using that strength to produce his or her downfall. In contrast, if we are humble and teachable, hearkening to the commandments of God, the counsel of his leaders, and the promptings of his spirit, we can be guided. We can be guided in how to use our spiritual gifts, our accomplishments, and all of our other strengths for righteousness. And we can be guided in how to avoid Satan's efforts to use our strengths to cause our downfall.

Divine Love

Elder Russell M. Nelson offers to correct some loosely defined terms that often lead to misunderstanding...

While divine love can be called perfect, infinite, enduring, and universal, it cannot correctly be characterized as unconditional.

Understanding that divine love and blessings are not truly “unconditional” can defend us against common fallacies such as these: “Since God’s love is unconditional, He will love me regardless …”; or “Since ‘God is love,’ He will love me unconditionally, regardless …”

These arguments are used by anti-Christs to woo people with deception. Nehor, for example, promoted himself by teaching falsehoods: He “testified unto the people that all mankind should be saved at the last day, … for the Lord had created all men, … and, in the end, all men should have eternal life.” Sadly, some of the people believed Nehor’s fallacious and unconditional concepts.

In contrast to Nehor’s teachings, divine love warns us that “wickedness never was happiness.” Jesus explains, “Come unto me and be ye saved; … except ye shall keep my commandments, … ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Does this mean the Lord does not love the sinner? Of course not. Divine love is infinite and universal. The Savior loves both saints and sinners. The Apostle John affirmed, “We love him, because he first loved us.” And Nephi, upon seeing in vision the Lord’s mortal ministry, declared: “The world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men.” We know the expansiveness of the Redeemer’s love because He died that all who die might live again.

Defining the "mainstream"

The essential "mainstream" of the Church is defined by the current leadership and teachings. We follow the example of the brethren, the living oracles of God. There is no dearth of counsel on this subject.

An example, from an address by Elder Eyring:

Henry B. Eyring, "A Life Founded in Light and Truth," Ensign, Jul 2001, 6

Here is President Joseph F. Smith's description of the work it takes to build an imperishable foundation of truth:

"The men and the women who are honest before God, who humbly plod along, doing their duty, paying their tithing, and exercising that pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, which is to visit the fatherless and the widows in their afflictions and to keep oneself unspotted from the world, and who help look after the poor, and who honor the holy Priesthood, who do not run into excesses, who are prayerful in their families, and who acknowledge the Lord in their hearts, they will build up a foundation that the gates of hell cannot prevail against; and if the floods come and the storms beat upon their house, it shall not fall, for it will be built upon the rock of eternal truth" (Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed. [1939], 7-8).

President Smith made building on a foundation of truth sound like a long list of things to do. He seems to be describing work. I remember President Ezra Taft Benson saying with a smile about his service, "I love this work. And it is work."

Yet you will notice that the work is simple obedience. It is not complicated things; it is not fancy things or getting great spiritual manifestations. This is work within the abilities of the most humble and the least educated.

It sounds so simple to build upon a foundation of truth that you may wonder why everyone doesn’t succeed. For one thing, it takes great humility. It’s hard to repent, to admit you are wrong on faith alone, before the evidence of a feeling of being forgiven and light comes. But that is the way it has to be. First comes obedience and then come the confirming assurances, the revelation of truth, and the blessing of light.

Apostasy in the Church

Elder Faust's general conference address is the classic definition --

James E. Faust, "Keeping Covenants and Honoring the Priesthood"
Ensign, Nov 1993, 36

Free discussion and expression are encouraged in the Church. Certainly the open expressions in most fast and testimony meetings, or Sunday School, Relief Society, and priesthood meetings attest to that principle. However, the privilege of free expression should operate within limits. In 1869, George Q. Cannon explained the limits of individual expression:

"A friend ... wished to know whether we ... considered an honest difference of opinion between a member of the Church and the Authorities of the Church was apostasy. ... We replied that ... we could conceive of a man honestly differing in opinion from the Authorities of the Church and yet not be an apostate; but we could not conceive of a man publishing these differences of opinion and seeking by arguments, sophistry and special pleading to enforce them upon the people to produce division and strife and to place the acts and counsels of the Authorities of the Church, if possible, in a wrong light, and not be an apostate, for such conduct was apostasy as we understood the term" (Gospel Truth, sel. Jerreld L. Newquist, 2 vols., Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1974, 2:276-77).

Among the activities considered apostate to the Church include when members "(1) repeatedly act in clear, open, and deliberate public opposition to the Church or its leaders; (2) persist in teaching as Church doctrine information that is not Church doctrine after being corrected by their bishops or higher authority; or (3) continue to follow the teachings of apostate cults (such as those that advocate plural marriage) after being corrected by their bishops or higher authority" (General Handbook of Instructions, 1989, p. 10-3).

Those men and women who persist in publicly challenging basic doctrines, practices, and establishment of the Church sever themselves from the Spirit of the Lord and forfeit their right to place and influence in the Church. Members are encouraged to study the principles and the doctrines of the Church so that they understand them. Then, if questions arise and there are honest differences of opinion, members are encouraged to discuss these matters privately with priesthood leaders.

There is a certain arrogance in thinking that any of us may be more spiritually intelligent, more learned, or more righteous than the Councils called to preside over us. Those Councils are more in tune with the Lord than any individual persons they preside over, and the individual members of the Councils are generally guided by those Councils. In this church, where we have lay leadership, it is inevitable that some will be placed in authority over us who have a different background from our own. This does not mean that those with other honorable vocational or professional qualifications are any less entitled to the spirit of their office than any other. Some of the great bishops of my lifetime included a brickmason, a grocer, a farmer, a dairyman, and one who ran an ice cream business. What any may have lacked in formal education was insignificant. They were humble men, and because they were humble, they were taught and magnified by the Holy Spirit. Without exception, they were greatly strengthened as they learned to labor diligently to fulfill their callings, and to minister to the Saints they were called to preside over. So it is with all of the callings in the Church. President Monson teaches us, "Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies" (Thomas S. Monson, Ensign, May 1988, p. 43).

A couple of formal terms that benefit from a bit of elaboration --

"Special pleading" is a specific reference to a type of logical fallacy. A good general discussion of this topic in Wikipedia .

"Sophistry" refers to a specious argument specifically intended to deceive. A sophism might be crafted to appear logical though actually wrong, could use difficult words and complicated sentences to intimidate the audience, or it might exploit an audience's known prejudices and emotions.
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