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Ezra Taft Benson |
It also includes those
powers necessarily incidental to the protective functions such as:
(1) The maintenance of
courts where those charged with crimes may be tried and where disputes between
citizens may be impartially settled.
(2) The establishment of
a monetary system and a standard of weights and measures so that courts may
render money judgments, taxing authorities may levy taxes, and citizens may have
a uniform standard to use in their business dealings.
My attitude toward
government is succinctly expressed by the following provision taken from the
Alabama Constitution: "That the sole
object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the
enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other
functions it is usurpation and oppression." (Art. 1, Sec. 35)
An important test I use
in passing judgment upon an act of government is this: If it were up to me as an
individual to punish my neighbor for violating a given law, would it offend my
conscience to do so? Since my conscience will never permit me to physically
punish my fellow man unless he has done something evil, or unless he has failed
to do something which I have a moral right to require of him to do, I will
never knowingly authorize my agent, the government to do this on my behalf. I
realize that when I give my consent to the adoption of a law, I specifically
instruct the police - the government - to either take the life, liberty, or
property of anyone who disobey that law. Furthermore, I tell them that if
anyone resists the enforcement of the law, they are to use any means necessary
- yes, even putting the lawbreaker to death or putting him in jail - to
overcome such resistance. These are extreme measures but unless laws are
enforced, anarchy results. As John Locke explained many years ago: "The end of law is not to abolish or
restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created
beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom. For liberty
is to be free from restraint and violence from others, which cannot be where
there is no law; and is not, as we are told, 'a liberty for every man to do
what he lists.' For who could be free, when every other man's humour might
domineer over him? But a liberty to dispose and order freely as he lists his
person, actions, possessions, and his whole property within the allowance of
those laws under which he is, and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary
will of another, but freely follow his own." (Two Treatises of Civil
Government, II, 57: P.P.N.S., p.101)
I believe we Americans
should use extreme care before lending our support to any proposed government
program. We should fully recognize that government is no plaything. As George
Washington warned, "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence - it is
force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master!" (The
Red Carpet, p.142) It is an
instrument of force and unless our conscience is clear that we would not
hesitate to put a man to death, put him in jail or forcibly deprive him of his
property for failing to obey a given law, we should oppose it.