Using our heads?

A few quotes relevant to the “culture of yes”?¹

Joseph Smith
We deem it a just principle, and it is one the force of which we believe ought to be duly considered by every individual, that all men are created equal, and that all have the privilege of thinking for themselves upon all matters relative to conscience. Consequently, then, we are not disposed, had we the power, to deprive any one of exercising that free independence of mind which heaven has so graciously bestowed upon the human family as one of its choicest gifts; (Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, selected and arranged by Joseph Fielding Smith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976], 49.)

Joseph Smith
President Joseph Smith read the 14th chapter of Ezekiel—said the Lord had declared by the Prophet, that the people should each one stand for himself, and depend on no man or men in that state of corruption of the [house of Israel]— that righteous persons could only deliver their own souls—applied it to the present state of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—said if the people departed from the Lord, they must fall—that they were depending on the Prophet, hence were darkened in their minds, in consequence of neglecting the duties devolving upon themselves, envious towards the innocent, while they afflict the virtuous with their shafts of envy. (Ibid, 237.)

Brigham Young
Shall we deny the existence of that which we do not understand? If we do, we would want to keep an iron bedstead to measure every person according to our own measurements and dimensions; and if persons were too long we would cut them off, and if too short draw them out. But we should discard this principle, and our motto should be, we will let every one believe as he pleases and follow out the convictions of his own mind, for all are free to choose or refuse; they are free to serve God or to deny him. We have the Scriptures of divine truth, and we are free to believe or deny them. But we shall be brought to judgment before God for all these things, and shall have to give an account to him who has the right to call us to an account for the deeds done in the body. 14:131. (Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, selected and arranged by John A. Widtsoe [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1954], 67.)

Brigham Young
Some may say, Brethren, you who lead the Church, we have all confidence in you, we are not in the least afraid but what everything will go right under your superintendence; all the business matters will be transacted right; and if brother Brigham is satisfied with it, I am. I do not wish any Latter-day Saint in this world, nor in heaven, to be satisfied with anything I do, unless the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, the spirit of revelation, makes them satisfied. I wish them to know for themselves and understand for themselves, for this would strengthen the faith that is within them. Suppose that the people were heedless, that they manifested no concern with regard to the things of the kingdom of God, but threw the whole burden upon the leaders of the people, saying, If the brethren who take charge of matters are satisfied, we are, this is not pleasing in the sight of the Lord. ¶ Every man and woman in this kingdom ought to be satisfied with what we do, but they never should be satisfied without asking the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, whether what we do is right. (Brigham Young, October 6, 1855, Journal of Discourses, 3:45)

George Q. Cannon
Do not brethren, put your trust in man though he be a bishop, an apostle, or a president. If you do, they will fail you at some time or place; they will do wrong or seem to, and your support is gone; but if we lean on God, He never will fail us. When men and women depend on God alone, and trust in Him alone, their faith will not be shaken if the highest in the Church should step aside. Perhaps it is His own design that faults and weaknesses should appear in high places in order that His Saints may learn to trust in Him, and not in any man or men. (George Q. Cannon, Millennial Star, 53:674)

Samuel Richards
"We have heard men who hold the priesthood remark, that they would do anything that they were told to do by those who preside over them, if they knew it was wrong: but such obedience is worse than folly to us; it is slavery in the extreme; and the man who would thus willingly degrade himself, should not claim rank among intelligent beings, until he turns from his folly. A man of God...would despise the idea. Others in the extreme exercise of their almighty authority have taught that such obedience was necessary, and that no matter what the saints were told to do by their presidents, they should do it without asking any questions. When Elders of Israel will so far indulge in these extreme notions of obedience as to teach them to the people, it is generally because they have it in their minds to do wrong themselves." (Apostle Samuel Richards on Nov. 13, 1852, recorded in the Millennial Star, 14:393-395)

George Teasdale
I understand that all men and women are their own agents; and I do not know a worse degree of slavery than to be afraid to think for yourself and speak what you believe. (Apostle George Teasdale, Conference Report, April 1901, Second Day—Morning Session 34-35.)

J. Golden Kimball
Latter-day Saints, you must think for yourselves. No man or woman can remain in this Church on borrowed light. (Elder J. Golden Kimball, Conference Report, April 1904, Overflow Meeting 97.)

David O. McKay
Ours is the responsibility … to proclaim the truth that each individual is a child of God and important in his sight; that he is entitled to freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly; that he has the right to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience. In this positive declaration, we imply that organizations or churches which deprive the individual of these inherent rights are not in harmony with God's will nor with his revealed word. (124th Annual Conference, April 4, 1954, p. 26)

Hugh B. Brown
We are grateful in the Church and in this great university that the freedom, dignity and integrity of the individual is basic in Church doctrine as well as in democracy. Here we are free to think and express our opinions. Fear will not stifle thought, as is the case in some areas which have not yet emerged from the dark ages. God himself refuses to trammel man's free agency even though its exercise sometimes teaches painful lessons. Both creative science and revealed religion find their fullest and truest expression in the climate of freedom. ¶ I hope that you will develop the questing spirit. Be unafraid of new ideas for they are the stepping stones of progress. You will of course respect the opinions of others but be unafraid to dissent - if you are informed. ¶ Now I have mentioned freedom to express your thoughts, but I caution you that your thoughts and expressions must meet competition in the market place of thought, and in that competition truth will emerge triumphant. Only error needs to fear freedom of expression. Seek truth in all fields, and in that search you will need at least three virtues; courage, zest, and modesty. The ancients put that thought in the form of a prayer. They said, 'From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all truth - O God of truth deliver us'. (Speech at BYU, March 29, 1958); also Hugh B. Brown, Continuing the Quest [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1961], 200-201)

Hugh B. Brown
We should be in the forefront of learning in all fields, for revelation does not come only through the prophet of God nor only directly from heaven in visions or dreams. Revelation may come in the laboratory, out of the test tube, out of the thinking mind and the inquiring soul, out of search and research and prayer and inspiration. (Edward Kimball, Abundant Life: The Memoirs of Hugh B. Brown, p. 139, a quote from his “ Testimony”)

Hugh B. Brown
Faith is the ground of all religion, but there is no special virtue in blind faith. Only faith that is grounded in a courageous search for truth is worthy of the student. We should reject every temptation to irrationality, overcome every inclination to disregard or distort the facts, avoid the extremes of fanaticism, and above all else, demand the truth. Here is the firm foundation for our religion—a religion that describes the glory of God as intelligence and proclaims that man is saved no faster than he gains knowledge. ¶ Just as the truths of science must be tested and verified by reason and factual investigation, so the moral and spiritual truths which the world is seeking from its prophets must be proved and validated in the experience of men. In his search for truth, every man must be true to himself. He must answer to his own reason and to his own moral conscience. Anything less than this would betray his dignity as a human being and a child of God. True dignity is never won by place, and it is never lost when honors are withdrawn. (Elder Hugh B. Brown, Conference Report, April 1970, Second Day—Morning Meeting 77.)

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1. Reference http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2010/07/yes-no.html

Finding Truth? (ALL Truth?)

Are we, as a people, becoming more insular in our search for truth? More content with authoritarian pronouncements? Too satisfied with the status quo of ranking? Too skeptical/rejecting of truths in other faiths and domains? Too convinced we do not need to think for ourselves—to seek our own personal witness? Here are a few reminders of how truth was framed in our early days.

Brigham Young
Our religion descends to the whole life of man, although some, sometimes, say, there is divine law, there is human law, and there are principles which pertain to our religion and there are principles which pertain to the philosophy of the world. But let me here say to you, that the philosophy of the religion of heaven incorporates every truth that there is in heaven, on earth, or in hell. 15:125 (Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, selected and arranged by John A. Widtsoe [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1954], 8.)

John Taylor
In regard to our religion, I will say that it embraces every principle of truth and intelligence pertaining to us as moral, intellectual, mortal and immortal beings, pertaining to this world and the world that is to come. We are open to truth of every kind, no matter whence it comes, where it originates, or who believes in it. Truth, when preceded by the little word "all," comprises everything that has ever existed or that ever will exist and be known by and among men in time and through the endless ages of eternity. And it is the duty of all intelligent beings who are responsible and amenable to God for their acts, to search after truth, and to permit it to influence them and their acts and general course in life, independent of all bias or preconceived notions, however specious and plausible they may be. (John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, 16:369, February 1, 1874)

John Taylor
If there is anything good and praiseworthy in morals, religion, science, or anything calculated to exalt and ennoble man, we are after it. But with all our getting, we want to get understanding, and that understanding which flows from God. (John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, 20:48, August 4, 1878)

B.H. Roberts
To pay attention to and give reasonable credence to [scientific] research is to link the church of God with the highest increase of human thought and effort. (B.H. Roberts, The Truth, the Way and the Light, p.364)

Joseph F. Smith
We believe in all truth, no matter to what subject it may refer. No sect or religious denomination in the world possesses a single principle of truth that we do not accept or that we will reject. We are willing to receive all truth, from whatever source it may come; for truth will stand, truth will endure. (Joseph F. Smith, Conference Reports, p. 7, April, 1909)

“Yes” & “No”

Several years ago, during a particularly stressful, confusing, demanding time of life, my good bishop arrived to ask if I would teach early-morning seminary.¹ The request was stunning and overwhelming for in truth and full disclosure, I confess that I was never a “teenager” and had never particularly enjoyed teenagers, even when I was in the age category. Somehow, I missed all the “teen” years—always too serious;² too inquiring; too prone to pursuing order, clarity, justice,³ and rationality.

However, I had been raised in a church culture of “yes.” I had never said “no” to a church calling before and almost always the “yes” was given within minutes of being asked to serve, as seemed the expectation (and sometimes the necessity). I was not always comfortable with the “speed” of how and when callings were issued, but had accepted and served in numerous capacities in both ward and stake. But this calling was such a sucker-punch to my psyche, that I mustered the strength to put my bishop on hold for the night. I had to ask God how much He thought I could/should endure.

For several hours I poured out my distresses (as if He needed to hear/re-hear the litany), but in the end I said “Thy will be done. If this is required, I will do it—but I will require immeasurable divine help.”

Finally, I fell asleep, but within short hours awoke with the clear impression that having said “yes” to God, I could/should say “no” to the bishop. In this instance, I had done all that was required.

I have often wondered since if we endure unnecessary sufferings in service when we skip the spiritual, personal confirmation of our callings. Of course, that confirmation may come even before the calling and sometimes at the moment of calling, but what if a confirming peace has not presented itself? Why should we feel pressured to say “yes” when we don’t have our own personal witness? Is that what God really expects?—every time? Or does He, first and foremost, desire that we say “yes” to Him, so He can then instruct us what to say to His stewards? Is that not the law of witnesses—that we be amongst the requisite witnesses to establish the truth of a call to service? How does the Spirit tutor us if we perpetually rely on another’s inspiration without asking our own questions?—getting our own answers?

Was my bishop inspired to issue this call, to force me into a tutoring, sacrificial moment—when distressed and overwhelmed, I still said “yes” to God? And was there (even before my bishop asked) some better, more loving, inspiring “teacher in the thicket” somewhere?

And for those who might think that opening this “Pandora’s box” of yes and no is an easy cop-out for refusing church service, I say, “Yes, there is that risk,” but is there not also risk and “cop-out” when we, like the wandering Israelites, refuse to approach God and insist that a “Moses” (or “Moses-substitute”) be our communicator.⁴ Is that what God wants?

How can we expect spiritual transformation unless we accept the contraries,⁵ paradoxes, ironies, and responsibilities inherent in life, in gospel teaching/service, and in the “yes’s” and “no’s” of spiritual guidance?
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1. An approximate 1-hour, 5 day-a-week, religious instruction time for teenagers (ages 16-18) before their secular school day begins. The required readings and preparation time for instructors consume hours of each day outside of class time.
2. For my grade 12 graduation, I did not want a grad dress. I would wear my sister’s from the previous grad year. I wanted the equivalence in money to buy books. I got $30.00, a princely sum in 1967.
3. I eventually got a law degree, but found the practice more the pursuit of money than of justice.
4. And they [the people] said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was. (Old Testament Exodus 20:19 - 21)
5. See posting about contraries/contradictions at http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/2009/09/agony-of-contradictions.html

Offering Up the Children

by SMSmith

Once
Laid upon the altar of the world
The innocent child of the Hinnom wild
Killed amidst the groves.[1]

Now
Laid upon the altar of the world
The neglected child in pursuits reviled
For things laid up in store.
The ciphered child in perversities defiled
By addicts demeaning, ever demanding more.
And the embryo child in a world beguiled
By rights of all but those.

By Moloch's priests amidst pagan feasts
Laid upon the altars of the world.
In proxied price for the willful sin
Of an idolatrous kin
Who feign in sacrifice.

What of these groves and altars of the world?
And the plague-orphaned child abandoned while
We surfeit in ease
Bottom-line disease
Kill in war
Pursue self ever more.

How long, O humankind,
These groves and altars of the world?

[1] Jer. 32:35, 19:5-6, 7:31; Isa. 57:5

© 1987 by SMSmith. Some Rights Reserved. See Creative Commons License at bottom of this page.

The Natural Man

~~~
We have been told:

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (King Benjamin’s discourse: Book of Mormon | Mosiah 3:19: .)

We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. (Doctrine and Covenants | Section 121:39)

They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol, which waxeth old and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall fall. (Doctrine and Covenants | Section 1:16)

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (New Testament | 1 Corinthians 2:14)

In addition, déjà vu confirms that the natural man adores power, wealth, and fame—those classic, three temptations that shadow every man (and woman) in varying degrees. Thus, the natural man is in constant marathon-mode, racing the shadows. He is obsessed. He wants no distraction; no interference. He wants the thrill of passing; of besting himself and others. He cares not for the bleeding and broken. It’s a race of competition, efficiency, surpassing, “meriting” the prize. He scorns those less obsessed; those who stop to aid the exhausted. They are losers, as surely as those they foolishly succor. The natural man comes to expect that others, less gifted, should sacrifice for his visions and brilliance. He deserves. They serve.

In King Benjamin’s parallels, the natural man is not submissive, not meek, not humble, not patient, not full of love, not willing to submit [to the ways of God] … Loser traits, one and all, in the business world of yesterday and today.

So, if the natural man is so contrary to the order of God, what about a collective of such men and women? Does the collective ameliorate the “natural man” tendencies or does it concentrate them—as in a tornado?

Why is it that being surrounded by collectives of “natural men” of business, we blissfully follow the pied-pipers of laissez-faire (do your own thing, be a law unto yourself ¹)? Why do we swallow hook, line, and sinker, the “rights” of the natural man; the omniscience of markets; the “dictates” of supply and demand; the propaganda of maximized profit and “blessed” prosperity; the disparaging of governments and unions—the only entities powerful enough to counter the corruptions² of the natural man and his “private” capital collectives? Why do we bow to the so-called inevitability/determinism of (one-world) globalization?

These are all the ways of Babylon. She seizes upon things that call for balance and forces them to extremes. She caters to, praises, and propagandizes the natural man. Her ambition is to co-opt and corrupt the incentives of business and channel them to her own ends. Her spokespeople endlessly trumpet the “virtues” of privatization, efficiency, and deregulation (her most prized business tool); and ceaselessly denounce the evils of taxation, regulation, criticism, and the common good. She hoodwinks democracy in the name of freedom, agency, prosperity, “merit,” and individualism.

Why have we become so adept at severing conscience from commerce? Espousing moral and religious values in our lives and churches, but in our work and business following/favoring (though we deny it with passion) the ways of the natural man?

Suckered by Babylon, yet incensed beyond measure that anyone would suggest it.

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1. In other words, follow the dictates, rules, necessities, etc. of competition and the marketplace.
2. Yes, these too have become corrupted by the entreaties and temptations of Babylon, but without them there is not even a glimmer of “balance of power.”

To bless & prosper?

This morning, I finished Joel ben Izzy’s The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness and was again reminded¹ of the contradictions and contraries that “plague” this life.² Stories that continually affirm what we try to forget—that life is full of Job-like contradictions that challenge our notion of a just and loving God, of meaning and purpose, of success, of the blessed life. Stories that “make no sense,” yet could bring us to a more perfect sense of what it means “to bless and prosper,” if only we would LISTEN!

Stories of:

▪ Storytellers deprived of their voices*
▪ Great musicians imprisoned in silence*
▪ Artists / filmmakers blinded by circumstance*
▪ Superman bound to a wheeled, breath-giving chair*
▪ Gifted souls afflicted with manias and depressions*
▪ Perfect souls reduced to wretchedness*
▪ Rich men in hell; beggars in heaven³
▪ An Omnipotent God crucified, and
▪ Dreamers everywhere who dwell in sackcloth and the ashes of their dreams and labors while the Heavens wait for them to be still long enough to hear.

Why is it that we continue to define “blessed and prospered” from the dictionary of Babylon when the stories (from antiquity to the present) beat a constant drum of contradiction?
Why do we persistently forget the corrosiveness and divisiveness of worldly wealth? ⁴
Why do we keep judging by appearances instead of the eternity of things?⁵
How long does it take for us to understand that “What seems like a blessing may be a curse; what seems like a curse may be a blessing”?⁶

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1.  http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/search/label/AgonyofContradictions
2. … the Son, … ordained from before the foundation of the world to be a propitiation for the sins of all those who should believe on his name, and is called the Son because of the flesh, and descended in suffering below that which man can suffer; or, in other words, suffered greater sufferings, and was exposed to more powerful contradictions than any man can be. But, notwithstanding all this, he kept the law of God, and remained without sin, … (Lectures on Faith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1985], 5:2, emphasis added.)
"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds" (New Testament Hebrews 12:2-3, emphasis added).
* Including: Joel ben Izzy; Beethoven; Hugues de Montalembert; Christopher Reeve; Patty Duke; Biblical Job; etc
3. New Testament Luke 16:20-26
4. Book of Mormon & prosperity cycles; New Testament Matthew 19:24
5. "But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart"(Old Testament 1 Samuel 16:7).
6. Story: The Lost Horse (see Izzy’s book, p. 11-12. See also http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/search/label/AfflictedWithRiches   http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.com/search/label/TraumaHappens

“Priests & Levites”1—modern day parallels?

At my father’s funeral, a speaker (giving the biography) said:

“Travers didn’t separate temporal and spiritual matters. Often times we hear people excusing themselves, ‘Well, that’s business, and this is church. You don’t mix the two.’ They do mix, and Travers kept them together all the time wherever he went, and in the work that he has done.”

Perhaps that is why I see the separation of “church and business” as one of the great failings of our corporate times where many of the values taught in churches and other spiritual centers seem lost in our collectivized rush to prosperity in an increasingly business-dominated world.

Have we, by relying so much on the collective hierarchy of corporate systems, lost our sense of individual responsibility, accountability, and compassion for those that the system casts to the side of the road? Why is it that respectable, honorable men and women can countenance—even engage in—disreputable, dishonorable acts when working for legal fictions² or when shielded as mere investors? Why do so many of us hide our head in the sand of maximized profit and deregulation while our “priests and Levites” promenade the byways of so called “free-markets”? “Free-markets” that have surreptitiously reverted to Adam Smith’s despised mercantile system of amassed wealth, power, and privilege!³ Déjà vu, anyone?!

Adam Smith⁴ believed that self-interest, when properly channeled in the competitive marketplace, could promote virtues of order, trust, self-command, prudence, probity, and even benevolence; that a properly channeled self-interest would redound to the public good. This required that a monopoly of physical power reside with the state—that the state monitor the considerable ironies and negatives that the natural tendencies of competitive markets exacerbated.

Our newspapers, magazines, newscasts, blogs, and websites are filled with stories of the wounded and dying because of increasingly unregulated tendencies. Consider:

▪ Companies continuing to operate unsafe mines⁵ after numerous citations and huge fines.
▪ Businesses justifying subsistence wages and sweatshop conditions.
▪ Companies polluting air, water, land, and living beings.⁶
▪ CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies engaging in bribery and fraud.⁷
▪ Companies knowingly manufacturing and marketing hazardous goods: addiction-enhanced cigarettes, fatal pharmaceuticals, toxic toys, contaminated foods, defective autos, bogus cures, etc.
▪ Financial schemes plundering to the right and to the left.
▪ Multinationals buying up global competitors or destroying them via rumor-mongering.
▪ Big-business falsifying earnings and liabilities.
▪ Etc., etc., etc. ⁸

The list is endless, as are the witnesses⁸ that cry in continual litany against our blindness and deafness. Why do we keep defending corrupted systems that pose as advocates of “competitive free-markets” while violating both the tenets of such free-markets and the professed virtues of owners, managers, shareholders, employees, and citizens at large? Why do we sustain these imposters that malign and weaken, with our consent and complicity, the very institution meant to monitor their adherence to the rule of law and human decency? Instead, we champion a corrupted system that has brought death, disease, injury, pollution, fraud, bribery, and a myriad sins into a marketplace that now survives, not on competition, but on favors? And we? Instead of identifying the brigands that plunder for profit, we demote the “sheriff” by popular (and propagandized) sentiment.

Adam Smith was not anti-government or anti-regulation. He believed that government would grow in size and importance along with the growth of a “channeled” and appropriately regulated competitive free-market as it helped elevate citizens to “universal opulence.” But the very institution designed to protect private property and enforce the rule of law has been co-opted by increasingly unrestrained self-interest and the negatives of wealth combined with power and influence. Large sectors of government now lie wounded at the side of the road along with other citizens while faux, laissez-faire priests and Levites of every stripe take great pains to “not see” or, in the alternative, to justify the wounded and dying. (“Them’s the breaks of the marketplace!”)

There is much good that has come out of the marketplace, but if we persist in blindness by mocking “motes” in government while discounting “beams” in business,⁹ our democratic values and the very Republic of America herself shall be found amongst the victims at the side of the road.

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1. New Testament Luke 10:25-37: And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
2. See Corporate Personality at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_fiction
3. For example: Who else gets Golden parachutes for failing? http://photo.newsweek.com/content/photo/2008/9/photos-ceos-golden-parachutes-from-failed-firms.html
4. Review lectures 7-10 of “Thinking about Capitalism” taught by Jerry Z. Muller, PhD; The Catholic University of America (© 2008, “The Teaching Company®, The Great Courses®)
5. Mining, e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_accident ; http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/04/06/virginia-mine-explosion.html ;
6. Polluters, e.g.: http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/02/19/10-Worst-Corporate-Polluters ; http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933679.html ;
7. Corporate Fraud: http://securities.stanford.edu/news-archive/2004/20040306_Headline01_Staff.htm ; http://articles.sfgate.com/2002-07-14/business/17553322_1_scandals-regulation-stock ; http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudAmericanHistory.htm ; http://www.itexaminer.com/the-history-of-corporate-fraud-is-banal.aspx ; Bribery: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1977526,00.html ; http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/172/30078.html ; Smuggling: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/04/13/tobacco-smuggling-lawsuit-settled.html ;
8. The list grows every day. For past examples see: http://www.corpwatch.org/ ; http://www.corp-ethics.com/ ; http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/list.html ; http://www.corporations.org/ ; http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/ ;
9. New Testament Matthew 7:3 “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” Of course there are problems with the present state of government excesses and abuses, but the real threat to liberty and democractic values is in the corrupted state of wealth, power, influence, and excess of modern business, which also accounts for much of government corruption.