Sum Total of Values and Principles in the Modern World

Moral decay continues in the United States and around the world.  Yet each of us need not succumb to the enticings of a modern world, ready and willing to compromise its values at the winds of public sentiment.  Your upright principles and values strengthen a nation.  On the other hand, your vices if not tended to, will project an acceleration of moral decay in those around you.  With each decision we make we need to ask ourselves who we really are and what is our potential?  The answer should be reflected in each succeeding decision we make - large or small.

How we got to this point in the history of mankind is important.  However, we are here, and we need to know how to remedy the state of things for the good of the rising generation and our own prosperity.  I like to learn things visually and so I choose to learn from the David O. McKay stone.  It is a stone that a young missionary by the name of David O. McKay saw above a door in Scotland and struck him to the heart with profound impact.  The inscription reads "What E're Thou Art, Act Well Thy Part."

Credit Maskery and Lunk

With this inscription was an interesting engraving of a "magic stone."  It was a square sectioned into nine smaller squares as seen above.  It was considered such because each of the symbols in each square represented a numerical value.  When you add the values up in a line in any direction the sum results are the same.  Combined with the inscription we can learn that changing any one value changes the whole or "magic" of the system because the outcome has undeniably changed.

This has everything to do with the state of the world today.  We have all these supposed values and principles that we claim to live by but tend to be "in the way" when they are inconvenient.  When our values and principles are upheld with a firm foundation the spirit or magic of the whole is maintained and becomes a splendor to all who look on.  Yet, in a world of declining values we fail to see that compromising one out of convenience or for any reason degrades the outcome of the whole.
DAVID O. MCKAY STONE VIDEO
So, who are you and what is the potential of your outcome?  I'll tell you...  You are of divine offspring and as such are entitled, if worthy, to inherit powers and blessings unmeasured.  You have a worth equal to that of the truest liberty you've been given.  In credit to the Atonement of Jesus Christ you have been afforded the greatest of liberty - to inherit the consequences of all your good and bad choices.  In other words with your continued favored choices in life you can, in absolute reality, return back into the presence of the Father - your Father - clean, and be found worthy of continued learning and opportunities boundless throughout the eternities with the loving accompaniment of your family relationships.

Is this not the ultimate of happiness?  Is not the possibility of boundless personal expansion the pinnacle of liberty?  Can there be anything greater than that?  Nope, don't think so.  It can be yours and its all with the establishment of Jesus Christ as your foundation - your rock upon which all your values and principles are engraved.

This may all sound as an advocacy of a particular religion but it is not.  I am a patriot who loves the divinely inspired Constitution of the United States.  I believe it to be a preparatory Constitution for a coming greater law with greater expectations and prosperity.  I believe that our Founding Fathers were correctly inspired from the tender ages of youth to fulfill the measures which history now credits them.  Religion is good and becomes a bedrock for healthy families.  My aim though is in exhorting all people to return to a state of dignity and integrity.  Return through living strictly by upright values and principles.  Shore up these virtues to stand against all the temptations and mockery of the world.

Search your own heart.  Of course it's true that you have a unique purpose in life and that the end destiny should only be that of happiness, continued growth, expansion and unfailing love.  Anyone who truly loves freedom and liberty should at least feel the desire for this compassed path toward ultimate peace.  Isn't this worth taking inventory of your own values and the principles you live by?  Isn't it worth it for the sake of making sure you're a good example to the rising generation charged to protect the Constitution of the United States, and the expansion of liberty to all who are ready and willing to accept it?

In the sacred writ of Doctrine and Covenants 82:10 it states: "I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise."  How many times and in how many places in scripture are we promised great blessings for obedience?  Those are contracts that the Lord has committed to - with us.  We break our covenant with him when we are not in compliance with the commandments of God.  Yet, many of us dare to curse God when we, ourselves, have brought us out of His favor.

The stalwart nature and the upright ethics of our forefathers are a direct cause of the prosperity they've prepared for us.  It is their pioneering efforts ethically and morally that have paved the way to the greatness that builds nations that the world has never seen before.  It is character like theirs that proudly crossed their heart and declared the Pledge of Allegiance.  It is character like theirs that upheld the Second Amendment, knowing that by God we do have the right to protect our homes and property against any threat foreign or domestic.  It's character like theirs that have raised great men and women like your great grandparents, grandparents, parents and hopefully yourselves as well.

Return to virtuous living.  Return to dignity and integrity.  I have one more scriptural passage for you and it is found in the Book of Mosiah 18:9.  It states that we are to "...stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God..."  As the pilot nation of liberty of the modern era it is our obligation to recognize the hand of God in all things.  In so doing we will recognize more sensitively our own actions and thoughts.  We'll be more receptive to the compelling in the heart to modify our motivations for the good of all mankind.

Stand firm to correct principles.  We have now entered a time when we are content to legalizing immorality and calling it good for us to do.  This is not good and condoning immorality in the halls of justice only compounds the greater condemnation yet to come.  Hold true to what's right even in the face of those who demand your compromise.  The laws of God are absolute and unchanging just as each one of us should be.

This is my testament of the integrity of man that I'm compelled to share for the benefit of not only myself but for even just one out there who may be struggling in mires of the modern world.  Now that you know your potential as a literal heir of God, I urge you to apply the before-mentioned saying to yourself and make all the sum totals of your values match up flawlessly.

What E're Thou Art, Act Well Thy Part

Americans Leave Labor Force

Discouragement is a venomous condition that spreads like a virus.  It can not only bring down the individual but it assuredly can bring down a nation.  Such is the current news of unemployment versus the vast numbers of Americans leaving the workforce.  It doesn't take a Masters degree to understand that it is work and the ingenuity of the American heart implementing liberty that makes this country prosper.  Work, whatever labor it may be, provides the necessities of the home and enables the head-of-household to protect the family.  That is the foundation of what work is.  That is the foundation of the function of work for the American home.

One would have to be blind not to see that jobs in America overall are disappearing at a frightening rate.  The reasons can be debated all day long, but at least from my observations I look toward the President of the United States and the legislators in both houses of Congress.  From my perspective I see a re-elected tyrant whose hidden agendas are becoming ever clearer by the day.  I see escalations in spending with little discipline of budgeting.  I see the Dollar, the lifeblood of American prosperity being devalued.  What's worse is that I see a desensitized American public unwilling to make the changes necessary to bring this country back to a status of responsible power and liberty.  The spirits that God selectively placed to grow in the United States have chosen to be so easily swayed to be dependent on a government that has clipped the wings of liberty.
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I don't feel like rehashing all the reasons and citing all the unconstitutional acts just to prove my point.  Why? Well, at this juncture I cannot fathom this argument to be arguable!  Furthermore, I believe it would be a waste of my time to try and convert someone to a reality that is squarely in front of their face.  I no longer have the time or patience to debate with such extensive display of ignorance.

As Americans, as citizens of the United States, as children of the inspired Constitution we have not only the right but also the responsibility and obligation to peaceably put off this government.  I say peaceably because the structure must be maintained.  If we are to sustain the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as worthy documents to live by then the order must be maintained.  Yet, we use the tools afforded us to replace the tyranny that has been festering in Washington for decades.  With a Obamacare purposely designed to destroy the United States and legislators pandering to the minority vote its no wonder we're in the mess that dirties our boots.  We now debate in the halls of Congress legislating violent and deliberate acts against U.S. citizens.  We debate gun control and suppressing the Second Amendment over heinous acts committed by those mentally disturbed.  The very means of protection is being stripped from us by the very entity that the Second Amendment was designed to protect the citizen from.  You bet we have the right to use any firearm to protect our property and rights from our own government.
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Workforce confidence is low and a growing number of businesses are leery to hire.  The cost of providing healthcare insurance has as much as quadrupled since 2010.  On top of that this has caused many employers to cut employees down to part-time to evade health plans altogether for their employees.  It stinks, it sucks but can you really blame the businesses for such decisions.  Not if you want them to stay open.  Our government has openly put in place a carefully laid out plan to move the growing sectors of the lower economic classes to government dependence.  Is this really where you want to be?

We are not true Americans if we answer in the affirmative that this is where we want to be.  America is uniquely apart as cherishing liberty and the freedoms to reap what we sow.  This oftentimes requires the American mind to not take the path of least resistance.  It requires us to work and toil for prosperity.  It requires us to appreciate liberty and the blood which that liberty has cost.  If we give in and opt into a system designed to ensnare us, we thus surrender a part of our liberty which defines us as providers and protectors.

Assistance is needed at times but it should never be used as a crutch to continue or acquire bad habits.  If we suddenly become without a job it is our duty to beat the street constantly until work has been reacquired.  THIS MAY EVEN REQUIRE YOU TO RELOCATE ELSEWHERE IN ORDER TO FIND WORK.  I cap that because many give up on job hunting since the local market is so bleak.  So the idea is "give up" and rely on the government who advertises your full funding for the next two years.  Fellow Americans we are not to idle away our time.  We are to be active and industrious.  A lack of jobs locally does not indicate a lack of jobs elsewhere.  Go and do in order to sustain your integrity and dignity.

If we are to reacquire that American spirit that made this nation great in the first place then we have got to get the strength and courage to address those who lead us.  There are a few who still champion our cause but by and large self interest governs them.

I so testify that the Constitution will not be altogether stricken, but we are allowing it to be tested and tried.