Redefining the Republican Party

When a system is broken, it’s usually not because the people in the system are bad or incompetent. It’s usually because the system is fundamentally flawed. In order to fix a broken system, you have to change the system.

The Republican Party is broken. It is unable to do what its supporters want it to do. The purpose of the Republican Party is not to get people elected. It is to move certain issues forward, issues that align with our anti-government, pro-free market, and pro-morality fundamentalists beliefs as Americans.

I believe the Republican Party is beginning more and more to resemble the Democratic Party precisely because it is operating in the same way that the Democratic Party is operating. A handful of leaders dictate to the rank and file the way it’s going to be, and the rank and file can only respond to their leaders through the ballot box.

The Republican Party can and should be a party of the people. That is, the candidates and issues that the Republican Party fights for are the candidates and issues that the people, not the leaders, want to see.

How do we fix this? We get republicans involved with the party as active participants, people who make the decisions on what is going to happen and how. We build a system where political power is obtained only by getting more people involved, and political power is lost by getting fewer people involved.

We don’t favor one-time turnouts at the ballot box or at the precinct caucuses, but we favor those who are consistent and have always been in the party. That is, you can’t have a candidate like Ron Paul show up, bring in a bunch of new blood, try to win the nomination, only to abandon the party afterwards.

I believe such a system is possible, and that such a system would look more like a representative republic than a democracy. That is, majority doesn’t rule, people elect people to act as their representative, and consensus is the driving political force.

To those who call Wickedness Righteousness

To Dale Carpenter at Volock Conspiracy:

[W]hen you enter the political fray, you are not exempt from public criticism and protest just because you are a religion or have religious reasons for your advocacy. It’s not anti-religious bigotry to call attention, loudly and angrily, to what you have done.

It is bigotry to hate a man. If you hate me for my political persuasions, you are just as close-minded as you accuse me to be, if not moreso. I do not hate my enemies. I feel sorry that they have made such a huge mistake in their lives and I hope I can reach out and change their heart in some small way.

But you’re absolutely right. It’s politics baby. Bring it on.

Here’s my advice to righteously furious gay-marriage supporters:

It’s not righteousness that is driving the homosexual-marriage supporters crazy. If you get a chance, you should read the Book of Mormon to see how members of the LDS church believe Satan operates, and how he is operating through the homosexual movement. Their intense hatred and anger is a clear sign of his manipulation of your movement.

Public protest against a constitutional ban on marriage for gay families is entirely justified. More than a mere vote, protests communicate intensity of feelings. They’re valuable in a democracy.

I disagree, fundamentally. Forming mobs and marches is a tool of democracy, but they are not justified and they certainly are pointless in a representative republic like the United States and California. Remind yourself, again, that the Founding Fathers viewed democracy as we see communism and socialism today. Democracy is not a kind word to call a government.

Something incredibly precious was lost on Tuesday. Those who lost it should not be expected to go back quietly to producing great art and show tunes for everybody’s amusement.

You never had the right to marry as homosexuals. The courts STOLE from the people their rights to govern the government. You don’t seem to get that, do you? Governments are ruled by the people in the United States, not the other way around.

As a mormon, I invite those who want to change marriage into something it is not and never can be to attack our church. Go ahead and demonstrate in whatever way you want, get yourself thrown in jail, but please, please, please persecute the church while you do it.

Criticize us for our fundamental belief in an all-powerful, all-merciful, and all-just God. Criticize our belief that revelation has not ceased and will never cease as long as people believe in that God and act appropriately. Criticize us for our belief that all men are created equal and government should be a creation of the people and government should be ruled by and not rule the people.

Criticize our belief that certain behaviors, among them murder, thievery, dishonesty, and yes, lewd and adulterous behavior, should not be tolerated by a just society, that these actions hurt far more than just the victim or the victim’s family, but the perpetrators and society at large, and that government should be used to suppress such actions with the threat and punishment of legal force, indeed that is the sole reason for government in our Founding Father’s eyes, which is keeping the wicked constrained and the wolves from the flock of sheep.

Criticize our belief that we should adhere to a standard that no mortal can achieve in this life, not even our mormon propehts and presidents, that we should keep our eyes focused on God and nothing else, that peace and happiness are only possible by following, humbly and sincerely, the council of an Almighty Father who speaks directly to the hearts of his children, whether they are willing to listen or not.

I trust that people who agree with me are more numerous than you think. And although certain Christians try to characterize us as a faith outside the mainstream, I actually believe that our beliefs are closer to the naive yet sincere and true beliefs held by the vast majority of our fellow country-men. Regardless, on the basic tenets we are all in agreement, at least the vast majority of us, and in the political realm, that is more than enough to make us the closest of allies.

I will proudly stand with those who stand with true righteousness and justice. I will gladly fight with those who stand for wickedness and evil. I will humbly wear their persecution as a crown. I will celebrate that I am treated the same way the ancient prophets, apostles, and even the Lord himself were treated.

(And frankly, your effort to label the homosexual marriage movement as righteousness is offensive, as if saying murder of innocent people was the preservation of life. Righteousness is not wickedness.)

In every age in our country’s history, true righteousness has always conquered false righteousness. It may take a while, but this American people is a unique and special people because they still worship their God and nothing else, and ultimately freedom, liberty, justice and mercy prevail.

The Black Population of California is Lumped With the LDS

Apparently the homosexual crowd who wants to take marraige away from what it always has been and can only be is lumping the 70% of the black population with the mormon population.

I remember when the homosexuals tried to compare their struggles with the struggles of the black community trying to obtain equal rights under the law. It certainly sounds like certain episodes of the LDS history. It’s no surprise that it all seemed to come to a head back in the 1840′s over the issue of slavery when the LDS members stood firm with the notion that the black race was equal to the white race in God’s eyes and that slavery was an evil that should be terminated. We were murdered, raped, driven from our homes, and it was made a law to persecute the mormons in the state of Missouri.

Today as members of the LDS faith stand firm against the outright assault on morality and against faith, they are bearing similar treatment. It comes with the territory. When you stand for what’s right, those who are evil will lash out at you in the most unreasonable way possible.

It’s why we have security fences around our temples. Those aren’t for decoration. They are there to keep people out who have and will resort to violence to get in and hurt us.

Now that the black community has found themselves aligned with us because of the way we vote, their supposed allies on the left have found no more reason to mask their true feelings towards them and have started using the infamous N-word to describe them. (link)

Yes, I am being honest here. Quoth the angry anti-prop 8 mob:

…the n*ggers better not come to West Hollywood if they knew what was BEST for them.

My church is one of compassion and persuasion. We will do what we can to disarm our opponents, to calm them down, to reason and to come to an amicable resolution. If negotiation is off the table, and the choice between fighting or fleeing, we would rather flee. There are, of course, some things we will fight for, and the anti-morality crowd has figured out one of them. When we fight, we fight as hard as anyone else can. President Buchanan and the United States of America know exactly what happens to uninvited armies in our territories. (Look up “Buchanan’s Blunder” for details.)

We don’t feel it is our duty to put those people down who deserve to be put down. That is, we fight only for self-defense or the defense of the defenseless. We let God take care of the vengeance and justice part. Or rather, we let the ones who deserve it proceed down the path they prefer to follow. In modern terms, “Let them dig their own pits to fall into.”

I think we are seeing the homosexual, anti-religious, anti-morality crowd “jump the shark” here. You can’t separate righteousness and justice from religion. You can’t take God out of America. You can’t do evil and pretend it is good. These aren’t philosophies I wish were true, they are true. As the anti-morality crowd continues to grow in their hatred of all that is righteous, those in American and the world who understand basic human morality will see them for who they really are.

If one is judged by their enemies, then I think we are smelling pretty good on this issue. Let the crowd who has lost all sense of right and wrong seethe and gnash their teeth at us. It puts us in good company.

Oh, by the way, kudos to those of other faiths who are standing with the mormons on this one. Those who understand that this attack isn’t just against the LDS but all who use morality to make their choices and all who see themselves as subject to an immortal loving God are correct. And we will stand with you if they ever come after you.